Proposal for "traditional marriage" license plate advances in Virginia

License plates bearing the message "Traditional Marriage" would pull the state into an expensive, no-win court battle and could eventually force the state to approve plates celebrating unconventional forms of marriage, legislative opponents warned Monday. Delegate L. Scott Lingamfelter's measure advanced to a Tuesday vote on final passage after it shrugged off an amendment that would have stripped the word "Traditional" from the specialty license plate. "The amendment strikes 'Traditional' because I certainly don't want to be on the record as not supporting marriage. I suspect we all support marriage. In fact, probably many of us have tried it more than once," Delegate Brian Moran said, spurring laughter throughout the house chamber. Moran, a Democrat for Alexandria, said the sponsor testified before a committee that the plate would celebrate the exclusive union of one man and one woman in wedlock. License plates then become a public forum, and federal courts have repeatedly ruled that dissenting viewpoints must be given the same forum, opponents of the bill argued. "So if we pass a 'traditional marriage' license plate represented as a man and a woman, next year we're going to have 'Gay Marriage' or 'Marriage Equality' license plates, and I suspect you all won't want to pass those," Moran said. "What we are about to buy is a lawsuit we clearly will lose," he said. Democratic delegate Adam P. Ebbin of Alexandria, the first openly gay member of the house, said he was asked this year to introduce a bill establishing a "Marriage Equality" license plate, "but I refused because I do not believe license plates should be a public forum. This is a plate that would be made available to adulterers, divorced people, people who have sex outside marriage." Republican Lingamfelter of Prince William denied that the plates define marriage as a monogamous male-female union. That characterization, he said, reflected only his view of traditional marriage.