![\"Richmond](\"https:\/\/archive.idavox.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/02\/images_RichmondRally.jpg\")
White supremacists coming out in defense of keeping the ban on same-sex marriage? We could not illustrate better how wrong the ban is. And yes, there was opposition.<\/h3>\nWhite supremacists coming out in defense of keeping the ban on same-sex marriage? We could not illustrate better how wrong the ban is. And yes, there was opposition.<\/h3>\n<\/p>\n
RICHMOND, VA\u2014A small number of white supremacists gathered outside the Virginia State House to protest the state Attorney General’ Mark Herring’s decision to fight Virginia’s ban on same-sex marriage, but was met by counterdemonstrators opposing their stance.<\/p>\n
According to news reports, members of the pro-secessionist group League of the South, who’s leader Michael Hill believes, according to a 2012 essay<\/a>, that white people are endowed with a \u201cGod-ordained superiority\u201d, marched from the Museum of the Confederacy, where they first gathered and were asked to leave, to the Virginia Statehouse where again police moved them away, putting them across the street. Some held Virginia state flags while others held professionaly printed signs reading \u201cHerring Hates Families\u201d as well as some calling for secession. Among them was former National Alliance member and local activist Ron Doggett<\/a>, Council of Conservative Citizens member and blogger Bradley Griffin, who has since shed his pen name \u201cHunter Wallace\u201d, and brought his pregnant wife to the rally, and Scott Terry, who in 2013 attended<\/a> the Conservative Political Action Conference alongside neo-Nazi Matthew Heimbach where he debated a black conservative and gave passing support to the slavery era.<\/p>\n A block away members of various groups came out to oppose them representing groups such as Active-RVA, Southerners on New Ground, Virginia Commonwealth Uuniversity’s Feminist Student Organization and Queer Action, and the editor of the Virginia Defender, a leftist quarterly paper covering Virginia. \u201cWe don’t support racists, we don’t support homophobes. They should just go home,\u201d Active-RVA member Kat Mcneal told ABC-TV<\/a>, also noting that their opposition was in support of human rights.<\/p>\n A local blog supported that sentiment. \u201cThis goes to show that the people of Richmond will not stand for bigotry and fascism. Nationalism and bigotry will never benefit workers in any part of the country or the world,\u201d a post on the Our Streets website read<\/a>. \u201cRacism, homophobia, sexism, and nationalism are all tools used to divide and conquer regular, working-class people so the wealthy ruling class can continue their system of exploiting all workers.\u201d<\/p>\n Later that evening Atty. Gen. Herring spoke<\/a> at the Equality Virginia Commonwealth Dinner at the Richmond Convention Center where he reinforced his support for same-sex couples and their desire to marry. \u201cThey\u2019re not asking for special privileges,\u201d he said. \u201cThey\u2019re just asking to be treated fairly and equally.\u201d<\/p>\n