On Monday, when the Supreme Court of The United States decided not to hear arguments upholding the ban against same-sex marriage in Virginia, it immediately cleared the way for such unions to be performed legally in the Commonwealth. Supporters and advocates for gay rights celebrated the historic decision as a touchstone moment in their struggle for equal rights under the law. Many began exercising their new rights immediately.

Opponents of same-sex marriage derided the Supreme Court for failing to take up the case, even though their complaints are likely without merit. For fear of instigating a debate on constitutional law that I am not nearly qualified to participate in, and without injecting my own personal views on the matter — which are irrelevant for the purposes of this column — I will simply point out that the 10th amendment to the United States Constitution states,

“The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.”

Because marriage is not mentioned in the United States Constitution, the authority to grant marriage rights is therefore left to the states. The Supreme Court, in following the Constitution, decided it did not have the authority to overturn a state’s law, in this case Virginia’s, on same-sex marriage.

Regardless of how one feels about the issue of same-sex marriage, it is an indisputable fact that it has been a contentious issue for many years. The fact that the matter was finally resolved, regardless of the manner in which it was, is significant news at a national and state level. The fact that the first same-sex marriage was performed in Southampton County only three hours after it became legal is significant at the local level.

Yet I have been questioned in recent days as to why we treated it as such.

On Wednesday, our lead story was about the first same-sex marriage performed in Southampton County (Capron men first to marry in county, Stephen Cowles, October 8, 2014), and in the days since I have been asked on multiple occasions why we would write such a story — let alone put it on the front page. I’ve come to realize that the question is actually a fair and valid one. And in response, I’ll do my best to give a straightforward answer.

The job of this newspaper, The Tidewater News, is to report to our readers on the issues and events that shape and impact this community and the people living in it. To do so, we profile newsmakers and report on events that do just that.

In this particular case, the biggest story of the day on both a national and state level had a substantial impact on the lives of two individuals who live in our community. The notion that the subject matter may be a little uncomfortable for some of our readers doesn’t make that fact any less true, and so we reported on it as we would any other story of significance.

The moment we start filtering news stories, or hiding potentially controversial ones in less conspicuous places, for fear that some of our readers may be uncomfortable with the topic will be the moment we cease to be worthy of the public’s trust or the 50 cents you paid to purchase the newspaper. It is our job to tell our readers what is happening in their world and it is the readers’ job to decide how they feel about it. It is not now, has never been and never will be our job to protect readers from the feelings they may have about the issues on which we report. To do so would be to violate a public trust. It would also cause us to lose all objectivity.

TONY CLARK is the publisher of The Tidewater News. He can be reached at 562-3187 or at tony.clark@tidewaternews.com