When he was a state senator eight years ago, Virginia Attorney General Mark Herring voted against allowing same-sex marriage in the state. But now, the Washington Post reports, his views have changed, and the Democratic successor to Republican Ken Cuccinelli II plans to file a brief in support of a lawsuit by two same-sex couples asking a federal court to strike down the state’s gay-marriage ban. Herring’s office circulated an e-mail early on Thursday explaining he’d concluded that the gay-marriage ban was unconstitutional. According to the Post, Herring plans to announce on Thursday that after taking the “wrong side” in legal fights over school desegregation, interracial marriage, and single-sex education at the Virginia Military Institute, he wants the commonwealth to get on the “right side of the law and history” with regards to same-sex marriage.