Although 17 state attorney generals, including four Democrats, are defending natural marriage, in many cases attorney generals have abandoned contesting legal challenges. Executive branch withdrawal from a constitutional legal challenge in California in particular entails defeat by default, Severino noted, as the law does not allow for other parties to defend. (Severino suggested that states establish systems for outside intervention in such cases.) These state advocates have even witnessed United States Attorney General Eric Holder "positively incite" such dereliction of duty, Whelan noted.

Yet "a lawyer is ethically obligated" to give a client such as a state "zealous" representation utilizing any "defensible position," Whelan observed. An attorney general's "own personal judgment" does not suffice in refusing to defend a definition of marriage held by President Barack Obama and others "until just about yesterday." A law "must be blatantly unconstitutional...as a matter of objective law" in order to justify an attorney general "declining to defend," former Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli elaborated. This, and "not, I really, really want it to be unconstitutional," was "the only standard throughout American history," a "long time on a bipartisan basis for a legal standard to hold up."

"Let's not beat around the bush," Cuccinelli stated when discussing the refusal of his successor, Mark Herring, to defend Virginia's constitutional marriage amendment against legal challenge. "This is the ends justifies the means rationale." As a state senator, the Democrat Herring had voted for the amendment that later passed in a 2006 ballot with over 57% of the vote. Despite having come to support same-sex "marriage" (SSM) in the interim, Herring admitted during his electoral campaign that he would be duty-bound to uphold the amendment as attorney general.

"Once in four years" as attorney general, Cuccinelli had refused to defend a law, namely a provision establishing a statewide entity to take over failing schools. Although Cuccinelli actually favored the law, Virginia's constitution (Article VIII, Section 7) specifically gives local school boards authority over schools. By contrast, George Mason University gun restrictions "just barely within the Second Amendment" did not please Cuccinelli, but he defended them in court anyway.

"It took my successor 12 days," Cuccinelli contrasted, for Herring in a "political stunt" to disavow the marriage amendment; "he was not telling the truth during his campaign." Indeed, Herring actually switched sides in the case, a "turning on your client" of Virginia "no one has ever done. "An act of political violence," Herring's "indefensible under the law" behavior "literally stands alone in the history."

If such "rationalization" and "lying is acceptable," Cuccinelli warned, then "tyranny" and "chaos in the law" will result. "A very sorry situation that we are in," Whelan meanwhile decried in describing attorney generals who apparently do not understand client representation. "What do they learn in law school these days?" "Unbounded political ambition" rather than legal ethics appeared to Whelan as the motivation of attorney generals told by their political base that "they have no future in state politics" without pro-gay positions.

Yet "you are signing up for the whole package," Cuccinelli observed in discussing the allegiance of an attorney general to the law. "If you are not really going to do it, you ought not run." A "trust in the process" of democracy had meanwhile guided Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia's deliberations over the death penalty, despite serious capital punishment reservations from his Catholic faith. From the audience Hadley Arkes, a renowned natural law and constitutional authority, noted as well that Abraham Lincoln worked within constitutional structures to contain the slavery he so despised.

"To the extent there will ever be consequences" for Herring's actions, Cuccinelli saw this in the political realm. Although not a public matter, Cuccinelli presumed that Herring faced state bar charges, yet believed that the SSM "political nuclear bomb...used as cover" would prevent any conviction. "State bars are so deeply politicized and corrupt," Whelan also criticized, but he hoped that charges against Herring would set a precedent so that "you see the inconsistency" with later, more politically popular charges. "Really...shameful" for Whelan was the absence of criticism for delinquent attorney generals like Herring from organizations such as state bar associations and the American Bar Association. "Where is everybody else?"

"Absurd and nonsensical behavior" in the judiciary with respect to SSM accompanied attorney general malfeasance, Severino argued. Condemnation of natural marriage's definition as "irrational" and "bigoted" in the Supreme Court's recent United States v. Windsor decision, for example, opens all marriage laws to attack. Thus a recent Ohio federal court decision turned Windsor's decision that federal marriage definition reflect varying state marriage definitions "on its head" by demanding Ohio recognize out-of-state SSM. Whelan also noted judicial assertions of "animus" against homosexuals, even though individuals like Herring and Obama had supported marriage's traditional definition until recently. "Assertions of animus are routinely substitutions for legal argument," he criticized.

An audience member meanwhile noted the repercussions such as lost business suffered by natural marriage supporters in California. "The lesson being drawn is that bullying works," Whelan observed while citing a Heritage study of numerous acts of vandalism and other forms of intimidation against California's marriage defenders. "The left while preaching tolerance is the most intolerant portion of our society," concluded Cuccinelli.

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