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Our call — vote NO
The measure
Question 2 is a legislatively referred constitutional amendment on Virginia's November 3, 2026 ballot. In 2006 Virginia voters adopted the Marshall-Newman Amendment, defining marriage as "the union of one man and one woman"; federal courts struck it down and the U.S. Supreme Court's 2015 Obergefell decision made it unenforceable, though the text remains in the constitution. Question 2 would delete that definition and replace it: marriage would be declared "one of the vital personal rights essential to the orderly pursuit of happiness," the state could not deny a marriage license to two adults based on their sex, gender, or race, and all lawful marriages would have to be recognized and treated equally regardless of the spouses' sex, gender, or race. Opponents, including the Family Foundation of Virginia, argue the text's separate use of "sex" and "gender" writes a contested distinction into the Bill of Rights with consequences beyond marriage, including disputes such as girls' sports.
What YES does
A yes vote removes the one-man-one-woman definition and installs a constitutional marriage right framed around sex and gender.
What NO does
A no vote leaves the 2006 text in the constitution, where it remains unenforceable under Obergefell unless federal law changes.
The math
A fiscal impact statement was issued by the Department of Planning and Budget and is linked from the measure's Ballotpedia page; no dollar figure is published on the page itself.
OUR CALL
Our call: NO.
Marriage between a man and a woman is the institution that has ordered family life across every era of this Commonwealth, and Virginia's voters wrote that definition into their constitution deliberately. Nothing practical compels this amendment — the 2006 text is dormant under current federal law — while its replacement does more than repeal: it separates "sex" from "gender" in constitutional text, seeding the same disputes Virginia is fighting over girls' sports and women's spaces. We decline to trade a settled definition for an open-ended one. Vote no.
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Sources
- Ballotpedia — Virginia Question 2, Remove Constitutional Same-Sex Marriage Ban Amendment (2026) — https://ballotpedia.org/Virginia_Question_2,_Remove_Constitutional_Same-Sex_Marriage_Ban_Amendment_(2026) (accessed October 25, 2026)
- Ballotpedia — 2026 ballot measures — https://ballotpedia.org/2026_ballot_measures
Result pending. No verified call (Associated Press or official) as of November 4, 2026. This page will be updated when the race is called or certified. The original article above is unchanged.
AI-assisted article — but the sources are human, and the facts are very real.