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Mar. 17th, 2004 10:17 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
liralenIt's weird realizing that when John and I were born our marriage, as it stands now, would have been illegal in more than a dozen States of the United States of America. That it wasn't until 1967 that there was a Supreme Court ruling against bans on interracial marriage or "miscegenation laws".
Since the enactment of the Equal Rights Amendment, it took a century before mixed race marriages were legal, nationally, and that, at one time there was even talk about making a Constitutional Amendment banning ALL interracial marriages. I've been hearing and reading quite a few accounts from that era and the arguments and justifications for banning interracial marriages sounds astonishingly like the ones that are being raised, today, against homosexual marriages. It's pretty amazing how often the phrases, "It's unnatural!!", "God forbids...!", and "The Bible says..." were used then, too.
I've been told that the homosexual marriage folks aren't taking into account how much emotional charge there is in the issue or the fact that they're fighting a long history of engrained reflex where the issue is concerned. But then I look at how badly engrained the whole history against mixed-race marriages is, and while it took a century and a half, I know now that, in my group of friends and relations, at least, my marriage is NOT a problem for anyone. And the commitment and love that John and I have it something that many would celebrate.
Since the enactment of the Equal Rights Amendment, it took a century before mixed race marriages were legal, nationally, and that, at one time there was even talk about making a Constitutional Amendment banning ALL interracial marriages. I've been hearing and reading quite a few accounts from that era and the arguments and justifications for banning interracial marriages sounds astonishingly like the ones that are being raised, today, against homosexual marriages. It's pretty amazing how often the phrases, "It's unnatural!!", "God forbids...!", and "The Bible says..." were used then, too.
I've been told that the homosexual marriage folks aren't taking into account how much emotional charge there is in the issue or the fact that they're fighting a long history of engrained reflex where the issue is concerned. But then I look at how badly engrained the whole history against mixed-race marriages is, and while it took a century and a half, I know now that, in my group of friends and relations, at least, my marriage is NOT a problem for anyone. And the commitment and love that John and I have it something that many would celebrate.
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Date: 2004-03-17 12:00 pm (UTC)http://www.religioustolerance.org/ifm_bibl.htm
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Date: 2004-03-17 01:24 pm (UTC)All of which are arguments that have less viability now.
Though I've always wondered, tongue in cheek, if liberals DON'T procreate, or do so in much smaller numbers than conservatives, then will there be no liberals? Or will it just be all the rebellious children of conservatives that will fill in the idealolgical void?
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Date: 2004-03-18 10:13 pm (UTC)Had another reason to take note of this recently -- the Democratic candidate for Senator from Illinois is the son of a Kenyan and a Kansan (who met and married in Hawaii in 1960 -- at a time when their marriage was illegal in over half the states).
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Date: 2004-03-19 09:46 am (UTC)It's very cool seeing the sympathy from those that fought the inter-racial marriage fight for those that are now fighting to get married and protect their loved ones.