Virginia: Marriage equality case at Fourth Circuit Appeals Court today

Buzzfeed reporter Chris Geidner has posted an in-depth report of today's oral arguments at the 4th Circuit Appeals Court regarding Virginia's appeal of the recent ruling that struck down the state's ban on marriage equality.

Just part of Geidner's take on the hearing:

Two of the court’s three judges appeared ready to strike down the ban Tuesday at oral arguments in Richmond — the third federal appellate hearing on the question currently winding its way through federal and state courts throughout the nation. Judge Paul Niemeyer was the only judge hearing the arguments who pressed heavily on the side of the state’s ban, saying that same-sex couples are creating a “brand new relationship” and that “it takes a male and female to have a child, to have a family.”

The “core of a family” is the mother-father relationship, Niemeyer told Ted Olson, who was arguing for same-sex couples fighting the 2006 marriage ban. Describing that relationship as “A” and same-sex couples’ relationships as “B,” Niemeyer said that “the state can redefine it and call it marriage,” but that wouldn’t change the fact that “these are two different relationships.”

Although arguments about defining fundamental rights and the level of scrutiny to be used in reviewing the 2006 amendment — the questions central to the briefs in the case — were discussed during the hour, Niemeyer’s focus at times seemed out of place, echoing as it did a Kentucky Court of Appeals opinion from 1973 that dismissed a same-sex couple’s attempt to get a marriage license because “what they propose is not a marriage.”

Read the full breakdown at Buzzfeed.