Last summer, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down part of the federal Defense of Marriage Act, while leaving states the authority to define marriage. Virginia's citizens did precisely that when they strongly endorsed a 2006 state constitutional amendment affirming marriage as the union between a man and a woman.

On Jan. 23, less than two weeks after taking the oath of office, Virginia's new attorney general, Mark Herring, turned his back on the expressed wishes of our commonwealth's citizens when he announced he would not defend the constitutional amendment but would instead join the plaintiffs and actively oppose it in pending litigation.

While declining to defend the state constitution without even appointing outside counsel is unusual enough for the state's top attorney, his decision to actively challenge the state's definition of marriage - a definition he voted for when serving as a state senator - is shocking and reckless….

What is at stake here far surpasses the issue of the attorney general's role and integrity. Most fundamentally, what is at stake is the preservation of the family, the fundamental and foundational unit of society.

Though long-recognized in church and civil law, marriage did not originate in church or state but in nature. Long before nations or organized religions, the institution of marriage existed as the union of one man and one woman….. No religion, government or individual has the right or legitimate authority to alter the original design of marriage.….

When his own country, Argentina, debated the issue, [Pope Francis] declared, “At stake is the identity and survival of the family: father, mother and children. At stake are the lives of many children who will be discriminated against in advance, and deprived of their human development given by a father and a mother and willed by God. At stake is the total rejection of God's law engraved in our hearts.”

Government recognizes marriage not because it has an interest in affording legal protection to the emotional commitment made between two people. Rather, it recognizes marriage because it has an interest in the union of one man and one woman, whose sexual complementarity is ordered toward the procreation of children. Decades of research demonstrate that children do best when raised by a mother and a father, affirming that mothers and fathers are not interchangeable or irrelevant to children's well-being. Redefining marriage beyond the union between a man and a woman renders it a meaningless institution focused on the emotional satisfaction of adults, rather than children's needs and rights.

We call upon the attorney general to honor the oath he took, as we call upon all Virginians to defend marriage.