The Virginia gay-marriage decision

Judge Arenda L. Wright Allen issued an opinion voiding Virginia's ban on gay marriage. And while I approve of the decision, I wonder how ignorant a judge can be of our Constitution, as in her decision she stated that “Our Constitution declares that ‘all men’ are created equal.” Surely it would be incumbent on a Federal judge to know that those words are nowhere to be found in the Constitution, but come from the Declaration of Independence, a document written by a prominent Virginian, Thomas Jefferson.

In fact, Judge Allen issued a revision of her opinion correcting this mistake afterward, but only after the error was pointed out to her by commentators. The basic idea of the opinion is right, of course. And it's fitting that the decision be made in Virginia, the state whose ban on interracial marriage was overridden by the Supreme Court in the Loving v. Virginia case. And in fact, Judge Allen began her decision with a quote from Mildred Loving, the wife in the marriage that was upheld in Loving v. Virginia. This, of course, is not a Supreme Court decision, but hopefully it will lead to one.

So, I view the decision favorably, but it gives me great pause that the judge that issued it could make such an egregious error as to the contents of our Constitution, which governs our laws.