Same-Sex Marriages to Begin in Virginia Monday

Virginia Attorney General Mark Herring says courts across the state will start issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples on Monday, following the Supreme Court’s decision not to hear a court case overturning Virginia’s 2006 ban on gay marriage.

The case, Bostic v. Rainey, was one of several cases overturning state bans on same-sex marriage that the Supreme Court declined to take up in its new term. That move makes effective a July order by the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals to uphold a lower court’s ruling that the ban is unconstitutional. The Fourth Circuit’s decision was stayed in August when the Supreme Court decided to consider Bostic v. Rainey, but with the case’s exclusion from the fall docket, the original ruling takes effect, clearing the way for county court clerks to start issuing marriage licenses to all couples.

On Twitter, Herring says his office is waiting for clearance from the Fourth Circuit, but that same-sex marriages should be able to begin at 1 PM today:

In rejecting the petitions for cert, SCOTUS has said that marriage equality is now the law of the land in the Commonwealth.

— AG Mark Herring (@AGMarkHerring) October 6, 2014

We are in contact w/ 4th circuit on exact timing, but we’re expecting that marriages between same-sex couples can happen later today.

— AG Mark Herring (@AGMarkHerring) October 6, 2014

The plaintiffs in the Virginia case, couples from Norfolk and Prince William counties, were represented in part by Ted Olson and David Boies, the lawyers who led the 2013 Supreme Court case that overturned California’s same-sex marriage ban.

Benjamin Freed

Staff Writer

Benjamin Freed joined Washingtonian in August 2013 and covers politics, business, and media. He was previously the editor of DCist and has also written for Washington City Paper, the New York Times, the New Republic, Slate, and BuzzFeed. He lives in Adams Morgan.