~*Official "What the hell, Commonwealth of Virginia?" Thread*~

[b_m_b_m_b_m]

What I’m saying though is demolish the house and put up apartments or condos

[b_m_b_m_b_m]

Read the room asshole

[Ricofoley]

 

Ladies and gentlemen, the Governor of Virginia is officially Mad Online

[Jason]

5 minutes ago, Ricofoley said:

 

Ladies and gentlemen, the Governor of Virginia is officially Mad Online

 

Is he secretly Lee Atkins in a vest? 

[b_m_b_m_b_m]

9 hours ago, Jason said:

 

Is he secretly Lee Atkins in a vest? 

[Guest]

On 1/23/2022 at 10:07 AM, b_m_b_m_b_m said:

 

Facts of the case are largely irrelevant to the holding in a state Supreme Court case.

[b_m_b_m_b_m]

10 minutes ago, sblfilms said:

Facts of the case are largely irrelevant to the holding in a state Supreme Court case.

Wat

[Guest]

11 minutes ago, b_m_b_m_b_m said:

Wat

The underlying facts, such as the case being about a sperm donor, is not relevant to the holding in the case that parents have very broad rights when it comes to their children. The point is the rights are so expansive that even a sperm donor has many.

[b_m_b_m_b_m]

18 minutes ago, sblfilms said:

The underlying facts, such as the case being about a sperm donor, is not relevant to the holding in the case that parents have very broad rights when it comes to their children. The point is the rights are so expansive that even a sperm donor has many.

That’s not at all what the holding of the case was about. 
 

Quote

RULE:

Purely legal questions of statutory and constitutional interpretation are ones which an appellate court reviews de novo.

Va. Code Ann. § 32.1-257(D) is an administrative, ministerial enactment. Its purpose is to ensure that the Commonwealth of Virginia's records accurately reflect the intended parent-child relationship. Where unmarried biological parents together undertake the process of assisted conception, voluntarily execute an acknowledgement of paternity naming the sperm donor as the child's legal father, and together enter into a binding agreement regarding custody and care, prohibiting the donor from ever establishing parental rights would be contrary to § 32.1-257(D)'s stated purpose and contrary to the Due Process Clause of the United States Constitution.

FACTS:

Mason and Breit were in a long term relationship and wished to conceive a child. The were not married. They executed a written agreement and their child was conceived by in vitro fertilization, using the Mason's eggs and Breit’s sperm. Mason and Breit entered into a written custody and visitation agreement providing Breit with reasonable visitation rights and agreeing that such visitation was in the child's best interests. After the child's birth,  the couple executed an acknowledgement of Breit's paternity and listed him as the father on the birth certificate. The couple named her after Mason's paternal grandmother and Breit's maternal grandmother, and her last name is a hyphenated combination of their surnames. When Breit filed a petition for custody and visitation for the child, Mason filed a motion to dismiss. She argued that Briet could not be the child's legal parent because he never married her and the child was conceived through assisted conception.

ISSUE:

Did Breit have fundamental right to make decisions concerning the child's care, custody and control, despite his status as an unmarried sperm donor?

ANSWER:

Yes.

CONCLUSION:

The court held that as the parents lived together, jointly assumed rights and responsibilities, and voluntarily executed a statutorily prescribed acknowledgement of paternity, the Due Process Clause of U.S. Const. amend. XIV protected Breit’s fundamental right to make decisions concerning the child's care, custody and control, despite his status as an unmarried sperm donor. Thus, Va. Code Ann. §§ 20-158(A)(3)and 32.1-257(D) did not bar him from establishing legal parentage pursuant to a written agreement as authorized by § 20-49.1(B)(2)

L.F . v. . Breit | Case Brief for Law School | LexisNexis

WWW.LEXISNEXIS.COM

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Did Breit have fundamental right to make decisions concerning the child's care, custody and control, despite his status as an unmarried sperm donor?

It was resolving seemingly contradictory and confusion statutes around custody and custodial decision making and an equal protection question. It’s a child custody case and not a parental decision making one; merely decided that the donor in this case particular case has rights to make decisions

[Guest]

7 minutes ago, b_m_b_m_b_m said:

That’s not at all what the holding of the case was about. 
 

L.F . v. . Breit | Case Brief for Law School | LexisNexis

WWW.LEXISNEXIS.COM

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Did Breit have fundamental right to make decisions concerning the child's care, custody and control, despite his status as an unmarried sperm donor?

It was resolving seemingly contradictory and confusion statutes around custody and custodial decision making and an equal protection question. It’s a child custody case and not a parental decision making one; merely decided that the donor in this case particular case has rights

 

Quote

ISSUE:

Did Breit have fundamental right to make decisions concerning the child's care, custody and control, despite his status as an unmarried sperm donor?

ANSWER:

Yes.

It’s weird when people post things saying it doesn’t say what it does say  It was not just a custody case, my man.

[b_m_b_m_b_m]

38 minutes ago, sblfilms said:

 

It’s weird when people post things saying it doesn’t say what it does say  It was not just a custody case, my man.

That’s just another way to say “do they have the right to be a parent and all the rights and responsibilities that entails” and it’s clear from the question asked of the court that is exactly what the point of the suit is. From the opinion of the court

Quote

 FROM THE COURT OF APPEALS OF VIRGINIA

In these appeals, we consider whether Code §§ 20-158(A)(3) and 32.1-257(D) bar an unmarried, biological father from establishing legal parentage of his child conceived through assisted conception, pursuant to a voluntary written agreement as authorized by Code § 20-49.1(B)(2).

The court can only consider the questions in front of it. In the opinion they affirm the right of the donor to be a parent. That’s what parental rights the opinion is talking about. 
 

take the L

[Guest]

1 hour ago, b_m_b_m_b_m said:

That’s just another way to say “do they have the right to be a parent and all the rights and responsibilities that entails” and it’s clear from the question asked of the court that is exactly what the point of the suit is. From the opinion of the court

The court can only consider the questions in front of it. In the opinion they affirm the right of the donor to be a parent. That’s what parental rights the opinion is talking about. 
 

take the L

To what end? The point is that he is entitled to the rights of a parent despite being legally no more than a sperm donor.

 

And what are those rights? Read the cases the court cites to explain those rights and how they apply to the case. It absolutely is a case about the rights of parents in the upbringing of their children, and how expansive those rights are. You need to read legal opinions more deeply than just a sentence here or there. The citations provide a ton of clarity as to what is actually being argued by the court.

 

The L goes to the person who posted an ignorant tweet without bothering to read the underlying case and presuming the take was correct  

[b_m_b_m_b_m]

21 hours ago, sblfilms said:

To what end? The point is that he is entitled to the rights of a parent despite being legally no more than a sperm donor.

 

And what are those rights? Read the cases the court cites to explain those rights and how they apply to the case. It absolutely is a case about the rights of parents in the upbringing of their children, and how expansive those rights are. You need to read legal opinions more deeply than just a sentence here or there. The citations provide a ton of clarity as to what is actually being argued by the court.

 

The L goes to the person who posted an ignorant tweet without bothering to read the underlying case and presuming the take was correct  

its actually quite clear you haven't read even a passage of the case, and if this isn't a troll and you have read it, I am seriously concerned that your reading comprehension is at such a level you should surrender power of attorney to your wife

 

'legally no more than a sperm donor' wrong, the court says he is a parent as he had until the parental break up established a parent child relationship, and was listed at birth on the birth certificate as the father. This is because the child was born via IVF to the child's mother and they were not married. These two facts are central to the holding. If they were married this would have not been an issue for SCOVA as the statutes in question clearly give custodial rights to married parents of children conceived through IVF. When the mother separated from the bio father he sued for custody and visitation. She said that 

Quote

pursuant to Code §§ 20-158(A)(3) [assisted conception statute] and 32.1-257(D) [signature of parents on a birth certificate], Breit was barred from being L.F.’s legal parent because he and [the mother] were never married and L.F. was conceived through assisted conception.

further, the holding of the case (the principle issue of yourself two posts ago) states that

Quote

In reaching its decision, the Court of Appeals “harmonized” Code §§ 20-49.1(B)(2) and 20-158(A)(3) to be consistent with “the intent of the legislature to ensure that all children born in the Commonwealth have a known legal mother and legal father.” Id. at 336-37, 718 S.E.2d at 489. The Court of Appeals concluded that it would create a “manifest absurdity” to interpret Code § 20-158(A)(3) to foreclose any legal means for an intended, unmarried, biological father to establish legal parentage of a child born as a result of assisted conception, merely by virtue of his status as a “donor.”

These are the only two statutes in question. And here (Status of Children of Assisted Conception) they are (Proceedings to Determine Parentage) in text form. In fact, skipping ahead to section 3, the analysis portion of the opinion we see, again, how "This appeal presents purely legal questions of statutory and constitutional interpretation which we review de novo." and a quick review of the opinion shows that the three statutes linked by me above are the only ones referenced, period.

 

But what about the other cases the court cites (and based on your comment, you haven't either since you most certainly haven't read this one)? Good question. Lets go through them.

Breit v. Mason: The case of the father v mother here

Brown v. Brown: At common law, there was no recognized duty on the part of an unmarried father to support his biological child. 

 

Welborn v. Doe: In Welborn, the Court of Appeals held that the only sure way for the husband of a gestational mother to secure parental rights, thereby divesting any rights of a third-party donor, was for the husband to adopt the child

 

Carter v. Nelms: when a statute is unambiguous, we must apply the plain meaning of that language without reference to related statutes. (statutory interpretation stuff)

City of Lynchburg v. English Constr. Co.:We must therefore construe these linked statutes that address the same subject matter “so as to avoid repugnance and conflict between them.” (statutory interpretation stuff)

 

Bowman v. Concepcion: The two statutes must be read “as a consistent and harmonious whole to give effect to the overall statutory scheme.” (statutory interpretation stuff)

Ragan v. Woodcroft Vill. Apts.: At the same time, Code § 20-49.1 is only applicable to the extent there is no conflict between its provisions and those of the assisted conception statute. (statutory interpretation stuff)

Commonwealth v. Doe: we are bound to construe statutes in a manner that “avoid any conflict with the Constitution.” (statutory interpretation stuff)

Hess v. Snyder Hunt Corp.: In Virginia, it is firmly established that “[a]ll actions of the General Assembly are presumed to be constitutional.” (TIL, and also statutory interpretation stuff)

Ocean View Improvement Corp. v. Norfolk & W. Ry. Co.: Breit contends that accepting Mason’s argument would render the assisted conception statute unconstitutional. That we cannot do, if there is any reasonable interpretation that conforms to the Constitution.(statutory interpretation stuff)

Eisenstadt v. Baird: marital status is not a suspect classification under the Equal Protection Clause.(statutory interpretation stuff)

 

Gray v. Commonwealth: Therefore, disparate treatment of unmarried donors is analyzed to determine whether there is a rational basis for such treatment. “A classification reviewed under a rational basis standard ‘is accorded a strong presumption of validity.’ ”(statutory interpretation stuff)

Heller v. Doe: Quoted in Gray v. Commonwealth

Cramer v. Commonwealth: the Commonwealth has a significant interest in encouraging the institution of marriage.

 

And there's still pages more of this to go. Pick one at random! So which of these or other cases cited establish that this "absolutely is a case about the rights of parents in the upbringing of their children, and how expansive those rights are" and not a custodial case based upon the rights of a parent of a child conceived out of wedlock via IVF? What language in the opinion leads anyone to read or believe that this is anything other than a novel custodial case?

[b_m_b_m_b_m]

What's happened is the Youngkin admin just went ctrl+f on the Code of Virginia and searched for "parental rights" and you've decided to try and be either a troll or a contrarian whose facts aren't even straight on a post from more than two weeks ago.

[Chadatog]

11 minutes ago, b_m_b_m_b_m said:

What's happened is the Youngkin admin just went ctrl+f on the Code of Virginia and searched for "parental rights" and you've decided to try and be either a troll or a contrarian whose facts aren't even straight on a post from more than two weeks ago.

How do you not know this by now

[Jason]

11 minutes ago, b_m_b_m_b_m said:

What's happened is the Youngkin admin just went ctrl+f on the Code of Virginia and searched for "parental rights" and you've decided to try and be either a troll or a contrarian whose facts aren't even straight on a post from more than two weeks ago.

 

He's always been like that. 

[b_m_b_m_b_m]

but you must understand, he was wrong on the internet

[Jason]

10 minutes ago, b_m_b_m_b_m said:

but you must understand, he was wrong on the internet

 

Which has always been his thing. 

[Guest]

1 hour ago, b_m_b_m_b_m said:

And there's still pages more of this to go. Pick one at random! So which of these or other cases cited establish that this "absolutely is a case about the rights of parents in the upbringing of their children, and how expansive those rights are" and not a custodial case based upon the rights of a parent of a child conceived out of wedlock via IVF? What language in the opinion leads anyone to read or believe that this is anything other than a novel custodial case?

 

I notice you didn't cover Troxel in your post  This is the philosophical underpinning of the entire thing. 

 

Quote

The relationship between a parent and child is a constitutionally protected liberty interest under the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.7Troxel v. Granville, 530 U.S. 57, 65 (2000); Wyatt v. McDermott, 283 Va. 685, 692, 725 S.E.2d 555, 558 (2012) (“We recognize the essential value of protecting a parent’s right to form a relationship with his or her child.”); Copeland, 282 Va. at 198, 715 S.E.2d at 19. Indeed, the Supreme Court of the United States has characterized a parent’s right to raise his or her child as “perhaps the oldest of the fundamental liberty interests recognized by this Court.”  Troxel, 530 U.S. at 65.  Any statute that seeks to interfere with a parent’s fundamental rights survives constitutional scrutiny only if it is narrowly tailored to serve a compelling state interest.

 

The mother of the child tried to bar the father of the child from access to the expansive rights afforded to parents over the lives of their children by way of antiquated laws. This would be of no interest to the court separate from the holding in Troxel where SCOTUS affirmed these things and set a very high bar for bypassing those rights. I think this is what you are ignoring, or maybe you just didn't get to that point? One can still disagree with the Governor's position without the reductionist "the case is about sperm donor rights" from the original tweet. It was about far more than that.

 

It is no different than saying Roe is just about a medical procedure. The holding is far deeper than the simple facts of the case.

[Guest]

1 hour ago, b_m_b_m_b_m said:

What's happened is the Youngkin admin just went ctrl+f on the Code of Virginia and searched for "parental rights" and you've decided to try and be either a troll or a contrarian whose facts aren't even straight on a post from more than two weeks ago.

I check this thread like once a month. Am I only allowed to respond to things within the last day or so?

 

The tweet caught my eye because it was funny, then I read the opinion in the case, including the citations and footnotes because I’m sick, and realized the tweet was at best an errant read on the case.

 

Most users here wouldn’t bother to read this stuff and just let their Twitter feed think for them, so I do appreciate you actually doing so even though we disagree.

[b_m_b_m_b_m]

54 minutes ago, sblfilms said:

 

I notice you didn't cover Troxel in your post  This is the philosophical underpinning of the entire thing. 

 

 

The mother of the child tried to bar the father of the child from access to the expansive rights afforded to parents over the lives of their children by way of antiquated laws. This would be of no interest to the court separate from the holding in Troxel where SCOTUS affirmed these things and set a very high bar for bypassing those rights. I think this is what you are ignoring, or maybe you just didn't get to that point? One can still disagree with the Governor's position without the reductionist "the case is about sperm donor rights" from the original tweet. It was about far more than that.

 

It is no different than saying Roe is just about a medical procedure. The holding is far deeper than the simple facts of the case.

This is of course horseshit.

 

Quote

After the couple separated, Breit continued to provide for L.F. financially. He maintained her as his child on his health insurance policy and continued to provide child support. He consistently visited L.F. on weekends and holidays, thereby beginning to establish an ongoing parent-child relationship with her. Breit took an active role in L.F.’s life until August 2010, when Mason unilaterally terminated all contact between Breit and L.F.

On August 24, 2010, Breit filed a petition for custody and visitation in the Juvenile and Domestic Relations District Court of the City of Virginia Beach. Mason filed a motion to dismiss and the court dismissed Breit’s petition without prejudice. In November 2010, pursuant to Code § 20-49.2, Breit filed a petition to determine parentage and establish custody and visitation (“petition to determine parentage”) in the Circuit Court of the City of Virginia Beach, naming Mason and L.F. (collectively “Mason”) as co-parties defendant. He filed a motion for summary judgment, arguing that the acknowledgement of paternity that he and Mason voluntarily executed pursuant to Code § 20-49.1(B)(2) created a final and binding parent-child legal status between Breit and L.F. Mason filed pleas in bar asserting that, pursuant to Code §§ 20-158(A)(3) and 32.1- 257(D), Breit was barred from being L.F.’s legal parent because he and Mason were never married and L.F. was conceived through assisted conception.

She was denying he was legally a parent because of what the plain faced reading of a few statutes say. SCOVA stepped in and said this is not the intent of the laws of Virginia passed and enacted by the GA, and 

Quote

If applied without harmonization with Code § 20- 49.1(B)(2), Code §§ 20-157 and 20-158(A)(3) would unconstitutionally infringe on Breit’s fundamental parental rights. As argued by Mason, an unmarried donor could never be the parent of a child conceived through assisted conception. That interpretation would absolutely foreclose any legal means for Breit to establish parentage of L.F., solely by virtue of his status as an unmarried donor. It would prevent Breit from continuing the constitutionally protected relationship he had begun to establish with his infant child. Such a result cannot withstand constitutional scrutiny.

 

All Troxel does in this is establish that the relationship between Breit and the child is a constitutionally protected right. And taking away this right requires what seems to amount to a strict scrutiny analysis, which the court finds there is no compelling state interest in keeping a parent from their child on the basis of the martial status of the father in IVF assisted pregnancies, which is again what would have happened without the harmonization of the contradictory statutes.

 

Now what does this mean? There must be a compelling state interest to supersede the rights of parents. Which in a deadly pandemic the state requirement to wear masks (and including other mitigation strategies) in school settings as is outlined in SB1303 where each school board must

Quote

provide such in-person instruction in a manner in which it adheres, to the maximum extent practicable, to any currently applicable mitigation strategies for early childhood care and education programs and elementary and secondary schools to reduce the transmission of COVID-19 that have been provided by the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

This would certainly meet the criteria of 'compelling state interest' that would supersede any rights that you have not outlined yet cite from Troxel and Breit.

 

(you will note that SB1303 is mentioned nowhere in EO2 from the Governor)

 

The governor is relying on the flimsiest of threads to justify the EO that is a blatant attempt to overturn the law of the state with regard to covid mitigation.

[LazyPiranha]

If my very brief reading is correct, this is one of those wonderful situations where everyone is kind of wrong and kind of right! 
 

The assembly, in 2013 well before this dipshit was elected governor, passed an act adding specific language to the statutes of the commonwealth.  For whatever god damned reason, they chose to pull a very generic quote from a case to use as the language they were passing.  It’s an essentially vague statement that you could probably pull verbatim, or near enough as makes no difference verbatim, from hundreds if not thousands of family law cases across the country.  WHERE they pulled it from or the underlying facts of the case are meaningless NOW because the sentence has been codified into statute absent of any context.  They could have pulled the same quote from a yoohoo bottle, it no longer matters, it went from something else to statutory law.  
 

So yeah, the facts of the case for the purposes of what limited definition of parental rights this bullshit statement gives are pointless because it was lifted out of the context of the case and put onto the actual law books instead of just being the case law.  That the assembly decided to use this pull quote of all things is curious and kind of stupid, but it doesn’t really matter.  That said, claiming that the facts don’t matter for the interpretation of court opinions is also false.  The case wasn’t, and never was about WHAT parental rights are, but rather who has them and under what circumstances.  
 

To bring this full circle into now, if the chud governor wants to use this as a justification for removing masks now, Breit is not going to be a part of their argument, section 1-240.1 is.  In this instance, the facts of Breit aren’t a part of the conversation, not because it was a state supreme court opinion, but because that exact language is now codified into law.  At best you could argue that the intent of the legislature was relevant when they pulled this specific case, but that’s only one school of thought for interpretation and given that the case in question doesn’t question what parental rights are in any context, it’s not exactly helpful on the topic.  Whatever lazy homework was done on researching the concept of parental rights was done nine years ago by whoever decided to pull that quote.  

[b_m_b_m_b_m]

34 minutes ago, LazyPiranha said:

Whatever lazy homework was done on researching the concept of parental rights was done nine years ago by whoever decided to pull that quote.  

Republicans probably on some abortion related thing tbh

[b_m_b_m_b_m]

On 1/21/2022 at 10:02 PM, Jason said:

EPA Employees Are Livid Over Youngkin’s Pick for Virginia’s Top Climate Post – Mother Jones

WWW.MOTHERJONES.COM

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Under Trump, Andrew Wheeler “destroyed or weakened dozens of environmental safeguards.”

 

 

[b_m_b_m_b_m]

Lmao

[Commissar SFLUFAN]

Getting off to a great start, I see.

 

New Youngkin poll: More Virginians disapprove of new governor than approve - The Washington Post

WWW.WASHINGTONPOST.COM

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A new poll from Christopher Newport University finds that more Virginians disapprove of the job Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R) is doing than approve of his performance.

 

 

[Jason]

41 minutes ago, Commissar SFLUFAN said:

Getting off to a great start, I see.

 

New Youngkin poll: More Virginians disapprove of new governor than approve - The Washington Post

WWW.WASHINGTONPOST.COM

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A new poll from Christopher Newport University finds that more Virginians disapprove of the job Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R) is doing than approve of his performance.

 

 

 

"Wow, how dare we get exactly what we voted for!" 

[thewhyteboar]

46 minutes ago, Jason said:

 

"Wow, how dare we get exactly what we voted for!" 

"When I voted for the Republican I didn't expect him to act like a Republican!"

[b_m_b_m_b_m]

Dems stayed home

[Ricofoley]

The narratives that Dems alienated parents of young kids by teaching CRT or making kids wear masks were completely wrong and it was just that Fox News got old people riled up to an unprecedented degree.

[CitizenVectron]

Never trust media narratives for any election, is a good rule.

[b_m_b_m_b_m]

 

[Commissar SFLUFAN]

McAwful didn't drive younger voters to the polls and they don't vote in off-year elections anyway.

 

In other words, Democratic voters were Democratic voters.

[b_m_b_m_b_m]

Governor Youngkin will be visiting my wife’s school soon and his advance team came today. Apparently he wants to tour the classroom of a teacher who is explicitly unmasked (there are none at this school, not sure how that’s gonna work out) and where he will be doing his press conference his team also explicitly requested that all pictures of masked students be removed from the area. 


Laser focused on education. 

[Jason]