XLRQ, you forget that when the Supreme Court is deciding whether new rights are to be minted they look at the State’s enactments.

I haven’t forgotten anything. Virginia already has such enactments (Va. Code §§ 20-45.2, 20-45.3), so even if the Supremes were to hear a case and rule on that basis, Virginia [a big "if" in its own right, as the chief proponent of the faux consensus doctrine is no longer on the court] would have to be counted among the traditional marriage states. Moving a sensible law (Va. Code 20-45.2) and a not-so-sensible one (Va. Code 20-45.3) from the Virginia Code to the state constitution won’t affect that analysis one whit. Very few of the states counted as anti-death penalty for minors in Roper v. Simmons were constitutional provisions, and the few that were were actually court decisions, not explicit constitutional pronouncements. The Supreme Court didn’t care about that, only which side the state policy came down on, for or against. Ditto for sodomy in Lawrence v. Texas, where the mere absence of a law relating to sodomy was enough. How many states do you think had an explicit right to sodomy codified in their respective versions of the Bill of Rights? Again, the Supreme Court didn’t care about that; all that mattered was which way the state came down on the substantive issue, for or against. There’s no reason to believe they’re going to suddenly discover a distinction between state constitutional policies and ordinary state statutes.

If you really believe, notwithstanding your protestations to the contrary, that the problem lies with Virginia courts or the General Assembly (presumably future ones, and not the one that put this amendment on the ballot in the first place), then you have a rational reason to support some constituitonal amendment, albeit not necessarily the horribly drafted one we get to vote on tomorrow. If you don’t really think the problem is (or will be) with the Virginia General Assembly or the Virginia courts, there is no rational reason to support this amendment or any other relating to marriage. We might as well constitutionalize the fee for a marriage license or, more substantively, the right of every free man to marry his cousin.

Now, there seem to be two ways to read it – both bad.

First, It can be read as an incentive for developers to come into a distressed urban environment and re-develop it. This will only lead to more Kelo type takings, and besides, there are already plenty of brownfield program type incentives available for this kind of development.

Second, and as I read it, a developer will be granted a property tax credit for putting in stream buffer strips, planting trees and other natural sound and pollution barriers, etc. in a development. These are all things the developer ought to be doing anyway (they enhance the value of the property) but aren’t, ought to be required by the county (at least here in NoVA) but arent, and are simply another giveaway to West Group and Til Hazel. Frankly, the end result of this is amendment – as I see it – is to allow West Group and Til Hazel to make even more money, while putting added pressure on local governments (ie: Fairfax COunty Board of Supervisors) to FURTHER raise my taxes as they are now limited in their ability to go after new infill development.

I’m voting no.

I also don’t think the government should be favoring some legal activities over other legal activities. It’s why we have K-street and a confusing income tax code. I don’t want to see that replicated at the local level.