Virginia

Today, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit granted the motion to intervene in Bostic v. Rainey that had been filed by Lambda Legal, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), and the American Civil Liberties Union of Virginia on behalf of a class of all Virginia's same-sex couples. The class is simultaneously challenging the state's marriage ban in its own case, Harris v. Rainey.

Recent twists in several marriage equality lawsuits have given rise to a fair question: What happens now?

Today, a federal district court in Virginia certified as a class action a lawsuit challenging that state’s ban on marriage for same-sex couples, extending the scope of those represented in the lawsuit to all same-sex couples in the state who cannot legally marry or whose legal marriages performed elsewhere are not recognized by the Commonwealth.

The Virginia attorney general will announce today that his office has concluded Virginia’s bans on marriages for same-sex couples are unconstitutional, and he will no longer defend legal challenges to the bans now pending in federal court.