A common sense decision
THE MARSHALL-NEWMAN Amendment, which will appear on Virginia ballots for the Nov. 7 election, defines marriage as "a union between one man and one woman." A careful look at the complete amendment text, however, reveals that it does significantly more than this. The proposed amendment is deeply reprehensible for its attempt to write inequality into our state constitution, but the language used is also overly broad, such that the amendment would have an impact reaching far beyond what are traditionally seen as gay rights issues. This is about civil rights. It's also about common sense.