Alliance Defending Freedom is urging Republicans in the state legislature to vote against a Democrat-introduced resolution that would inject “gender” into the state Constitution, deeming it distinct from sex.
The Marriage Amendment, which includes gender provisions, eliminates the state’s current definition of marriage—between one and one woman—to recognize same-sex marriage.
Deeming “gender” or “gender identity” as distinct from sex paves the way for “chaos and abuses,” warns Greg Baylor, a senior counsel at the religious liberty law firm Alliance Defending Freedom, in a Jan. 14 letter to Virginia’s Republican legislators.
“Men invade women’s sports and women’s locker rooms,” Baylor writes. “Public school bureaucrats withhold information about a child experiencing gender confusion from parents and even fire teachers who refuse to lie about a student’s sex. Activists sue doctors who object to pushing puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones on vulnerable kids.”
2025.01.14 ADF Ltr re VA H.J. 9 FINALDownload
The resolution passed the state House and is expected to soon come to the Virginia Senate floor. It establishes that Virginia cannot “deny the issuance of a marriage license to two parties contemplating a lawful marriage on the basis of the sex, gender, or race of such parties.”
This “elevates ‘gender’ to protected class status in the Constitution on the same level as race,” according to Baylor.
Baylor fears that the infiltration of radical gender ideology into Virginia’s Constitution could inspire activist justices to go a step further.
“Adding ‘gender’ to the Virginia Constitution might encourage progressive judges to handcuff the legislature’s ability to pass laws reflecting the people’s views on the distinction between the sexes,” the letter says.
The inclusion of “gender” in the Marriage Amendment is unnecessary and without explanation, the religious freedom lawyer tells state congress members.
“A person’s ‘gender’ or ‘gender identity’ (understood as something distinct from sex) has never been the basis for withholding a marriage license,” Baylor writes.
Furthermore, the amendment is based on what the lawyer suggests is a hoax—that interracial marriage and same-sex marriage are in jeopardy. Leftists have argued that the Supreme Court will overturn Loving v. Virginia (1967) or Obergefell v. Hodges (2015), the cases legalizing interracial marriage and same-sex marriage, respectively, but there is no evidence of this.
“No state is refusing to recognize same-sex marriages,” Baylor said. “No advocacy organizations are filing legal challenges to Obergefell.”
The 2025 Marriage Amendment also threatens religious freedom, he warns. The resolution strips the religious liberty protections in the almost identical statute the General Assembly passed last year.
“While the sponsor claims such protections are unnecessary,” Baylor writes, “the hostility evidenced at the hearing in November toward those who hold to the good-faith religious belief that marriage is a sacred union between one man and one woman shows that protections for people of faith and religious organizations are never superfluous.