No budget, but legislators OK gay civil union ban

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RICHMOND -- The General Assembly, failing to fulfill its main responsibility of drafting a two-year budget during its scheduled session, passed a slew of bills including ones that would put restrictions on same-sex couples and toughen the state's drunken-driving laws.

Gov. Mark Warner, a Democrat, has until April 21 -- when lawmakers are expected to reconvene for a veto session -- to review hundreds of bills that the General Assembly approved in the past two months. Mr. Warner, who is traveling the state to promote his tax and spending proposal, can veto, sign or amend the legislation passed during the session.

The House and Senate each approved by more than a two-thirds majority a measure that would prohibit Virginia from recognizing same-sex civil unions performed in other states. It passed the House by a 77-21 vote and the Senate by a 28-10 vote. Both chambers also passed a resolution that urges Congress to propose a constitutional amendment to define marriage.

Because the prohibition on same-sex unions passed by a more than two-thirds majority, the legislature could overturn any veto by the governor and make the bill a law. In the 100-member House, a veto override takes 67 votes. In the 40-member Senate, 27 votes are needed.

The resolutions sent to Congress do not need the governor's approval.

Some Democrats voted in favor of the measures, but critics said Virginia is sending a message of discrimination to its homosexual residents.

Lawmakers also passed, by a veto-proof majority, a "feticide" bill that would make it illegal to kill an unborn child against the mother's wishes. The bill states that fetal homicide is murder when the person who killed the child did so with malice. Abortion is not defined as murder under the bill.

It passed the House by a 77-22 vote and the Senate by a 29-11 vote. Mr. Warner has been critical of the bill.

Other abortion-related bills, which the House passed, died in a Senate committee.