laurence.hammack@roanoke.com 981-3239

Fearful that wills, medical directives and other contracts between gays and lesbians will be undone by legislation that takes effect today, about 300 people filled a Roanoke church Wednesday night to decry what is being called the nation's most extreme anti-gay law.

The gathering, one of seven across Virginia, was both a gay-rights pep rally and a planning session on how to challenge the law.

More than a dozen speakers lambasted the Affirmation of Marriage Act, passed by the General Assembly to outlaw civil unions and other such arrangements.

Critics and some legal scholars say that the law actually could go much further, invalidating wills, power-of-attorney agreements, insurance benefits and other legal agreements held by gay couples.

Starting today, rally organizer Molly McClintock told the crowd, gays will enter "banks, hospitals, schools and other institutions not knowing if they can protect their partners, their families and their assets."

Nearly filling the sanctuary of Metropolitan Community Church of the Blue Ridge on Jamison Avenue Southeast, protesters waved posters with slogans such as "Virginians Stand up for Equality" and "Make Love Legal." They delivered countless standing ovations to speakers who blasted both the law and the intentions of the politicians who passed it.

Tom Brobson, a Giles County farmer, held aloft a marriage certificate that he and his partner, David Brady, recently received in San Francisco - a union that is not recognized under Virginia law.

"This document frightens, shakes the bedrock on which narrow-minded, know-nothing, single-minded, hate-mongering politicians stand," he said.

Another speaker, Lynn Craven, ripped up the health insurance card from a domestic partnership policy that provides benefits to her partner and their twin 6-year-old daughters. "My children may have to go on Medicaid because of this law," she said.

Lynn Adler, a biology professor at Virginia Tech, said she and her partner recently decided to accept teaching positions at the University of Massachusetts, largely because of "the very clear message that the legislators of Virginia do not welcome or support their gay and lesbian citizens."

Equality Virginia, a statewide gay rights group, will join the American Civil Liberties Union and Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund in looking for people harmed by the law to become plaintiffs in a lawsuit that will seek to have it overturned, McClintock said.

Sen. John Edwards, a Roanoke Democrat who voted against the law, called it "patently unconstitutional."

"It's a bill that is not just unconstitutional from a legal perspective, but it's a bill that serves absolutely no purpose but to send a message of hate," Edwards said.

A statement from Gov. Mark Warner, who tried unsuccessfully to make the law less sweeping, was read aloud at the rally.

"This law raises serious constitutional issues, and it places Virginia outside the mainstream of other states when it comes to respecting individual liberty," Warner said in the statement.

Warner, who does not support gay marriage, has said previously that the law could affect both gays and heterosexuals of the same sex, such as a mother and daughter with a joint bank account.

But the governor's statement also appeared to be aimed at gay citizens.

"The voices that celebrate diversity must always be heard to keep our commonwealth strong," he said.

Supporters of the law say it is needed to defend the institution of marriage, which they consider under siege by recent gay marriages in Massachusetts and California, and civil unions in Vermont.

Victoria Cobb, director of legislative affairs for the Family Foundation of Virginia, discounted concerns that the law will invalidate contracts that any two people can form.

"It's simply a scare tactic," raised by a vocal minority that is out of step with mainstream Virginia values, she said.

"All the rallies in the world won't change the fact that this law passed with a bipartisan, supermajority vote of the General Assembly," Cobb said.