The Fourth Circuit gets it fundamentally wrong on marriage
Map of the geographic boundaries of the various United States Courts of Appeals and United States District Courts. (Photo credit: Wikipedia ) On Monday a divided three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit in Richmond upheld a federal district court ’s decision from February 2014 declaring Virginia ’s male-female marriage definition to be unconstitutional. In Bostic v. Schaeffer , the Court of Appeals ruled that Virginia’s “ Marriage Laws ,” including its electorally-enacted constitutional provision defining marriage, “warrant strict scrutiny due to their infringement of the fundamental right to marry.” Upon further analysis the court’s majority opinion, written by Judge Henry Floyd and joined by Judge Roger Gregory , concluded that these marital provisions were not supported by a sufficiently strong rationale to withstand heightened constitutional scrutiny. The key fighting ground between the court’s majority and the dissenter, Judge Paul Niemeyer,