The National Assn. of REALTORS® is some 1.3 million strong and proclaims itself to be the strongest trade lobby in the the United States. It assumes great offensive and defensive postures when its own self interests are on the table, but the group took a mighty to-hell-with-them attitude when property rights were sacrificed in last year's legislative debacle in Virginia.
Virginia lawmakers passed the Marriage Affirmation Act last summer. All but unnoticed on the national stage during a highly contentious election cycle, the law was crafted so that ANY contract between two individuals of the same sex that can be CONSTRUED to validate a romantic association should be considered invalid under the law.
This is not a joke or an Internet hoax. This is a true report about a successful attempt by religious theocrats to subvert property rights in Virginia.
The following appears in an ESSAY - For lovers? In Virginia, some exceptions apply.
"The language of the Marriage Affirmation Act is incomprehensibly broad. Does its ban on 'partnership contract or other arrangement' include wills, custody agreements, medical powers of attorney, or joint bank accounts? Is my mortgage shared with my partner, for example, an 'arrangement... purporting to bestow the privileges of marriage'?
"This session, the legislature moved to make the marriage and civil union bans immune to legal challenge by passing them as a constitutional amendment. If the same body approves the bill again next year, it will go to voters to decide in 2006 whether to write this blatant discrimination against a class of people into the Virginia constitution."
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