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Applicants will now be able to tick a box on the form stating "they refused to answer," said a spokesman for Attorney General Mark Herring's office on Sunday.
Court clerks in Virginia have received the new form and a memo, said Herring's spokesman. The note states that "clerks must issue a license regardless of the applicant's response or lack of response to this request".
"We were happy to quickly help solve this problem and get those couples what they had asked for," Herring said in a statement. "Thanks to these changes, no Virginian will be forced to identify to get married, I appreciate the courage these couples have shown when they have addressed this issue and I wish them the best success. in their lives. "
Herring's new instructions were sent after three couples sued to overturn the law, which required marriage seekers to disclose their race in order to obtain a marriage license.
The lawsuit alleges that the requirement is unconstitutional and that it is a vestige of the racist history of the state. This requirement, he says, was born from the 1924 "Act to Preserve Racial Integrity," which aimed to ensure that whites and non-whites do not marry.
"The obligation of identification by" race "uses terms based on ignorance and fanaticism, not on science," says the lawsuit, adding that this reflected "Virginia's historic crackdown on non-white people ".
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But couples are moving forward because the law is still in force in Virginia, despite Herring's new guidelines.
"Yes, we still plan to go ahead with the lawsuit," said Ashley Ramkishun, who said he was denied a marriage license after his fiancé, Samuel Sarfo, said. Did not reveal their shopping.
She identifies herself as West Indian or Antillean and feels that none of the options available on the form reflect the complexity of her journey. She was told to mark "other", but she replied, "I am not any other".
"The provision of the law is still intact, so the announcement does not necessarily solve the problem," Ramkishun told CNN on Sunday. "It's just a dressing."
Brandyn Churchill and her fiancée, Sophie Rogers, were denied a license for their wedding in October, they said. They received a list of 230 terms from which to choose to identify their breed, including outdated terms such as "mulatto" and "quadroon".
"We believe the GA's advice is a welcome first step," Churchill said Sunday. "However, we will continue to challenge the constitutionality of the law, so that the decision can not be overturned by a change of position or by the Attorney General".
He added that he had received news from several state legislators in the hope of removing Virginia's law from the code in the next legislative session.
Herring 's office did not immediately respond Sunday when it was asked what was the intention of the couples to go ahead with the lawsuit.
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