Virginia General Assembly enacted Affirmation of Marriage Act, voiding same-sex civil unions and contractual rights

On April 21, 2004, the Virginia General Assembly passed the Affirmation of Marriage Act (HB 751) in enrolled form, enacting it as Chapter 983 of the 2004 Acts of Assembly (Va. Code § 20-45.3), effective July 1, 2004. Chief-patroned by Del. Robert G. Marshall of Prince William County, the law declared that a civil union, partnership contract, or other arrangement between persons of the same sex purporting to bestow the privileges or obligations of marriage is prohibited in Virginia, and that any such arrangement entered into in another state or jurisdiction is void in Virginia — with any contractual rights created thereby void and unenforceable.

Earlier in the 2004 session the House approved an initial version 77–21 and the Senate voted 28–10. Governor Mark Warner recommended removing provisions that voided private contractual rights, but the House rejected his recommendation 35–65 and passed the enrolled bill 69–30; the Senate concurred 27–12, and the bill became law without the Governor's signature. The act reached beyond non-recognition of out-of-state civil unions: it nullified domestic-partner benefits, hospital visitation arrangements, and inheritance agreements that same-sex couples had established by private contract, stripping legal force from documents that had nothing to do with the formalities of marriage.

The legislation was part of a coordinated effort by Del. Marshall to close legal pathways same-sex couples used to obtain any of the incidents of marriage through contract or recognition. It preceded the 2006 Marshall-Newman Amendment, which wrote a functionally identical prohibition into the Virginia Constitution. At the time of enactment, Virginia became one of the first states to explicitly render same-sex partners' private contractual rights void and unenforceable — not merely declining to recognize a status, but actively nullifying existing agreements.

Updates

2015-06-26 — Obergefell v. Hodges rendered the Affirmation of Marriage Act unenforceable [2]

The U.S. Supreme Court's ruling in Obergefell v. Hodges required all states to recognize and perform same-sex marriages, rendering Virginia's Affirmation of Marriage Act unenforceable as applied to marriages. The companion Marshall-Newman constitutional amendment (Art. I § 15-A, adopted 2006) was separately nullified by the same ruling.