Box Turtle Bulletin
News and commentary about the anti-gay lobby“Now you must raise your children up in a world where that union of man and box turtle is on the same legal footing as man and wife…”
News and commentary about the anti-gay lobbyAugust 3rd, 2010
Ta-Nehisi Coates provides some cultural context to Loving v. Virginia, the 1967 Supreme Court ruling striking down state anti-miscegenation laws. (He offers a surprising rationale for why some Blacks thought the law should be kept intact.) And while noting that some (and he emphasises some) African-Americans oppose linking gay rights to civil rights, he finds the link compelling and then some:
[T]he comparison with interracial marriage actually understates the evil of reserving marriage rights for certain classes of people. Banning interracial marriage meant that most black people could not marry outside of their race. This was morally indefensible, but very different than a total exclusion of gays from the institution of marriage. Throughout much of America, gays are effectively banned from marrying, not simply certain types of people, but any another compatible partner period. …
A more compelling analogy would be a law barring blacks, not from marrying other whites, but effectively from marrying anyone at all. In fact we have just such an analogy. In the antebellum South, the marriages of the vast majority of African-Americans, much like gays today, held no legal standing. Slavery is obviously, itself, a problem–but abolitionists often, and accurately, noted that among its most heinous features was its utter disrespect for the families of the enslaved. Likewise, systemic homophobia is, itself, a problem–but among its most heinous features is its utter disrespect for the families formed by gays and lesbians.
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Richard W. Fitch
August 3rd, 2010
It seems worth repeating that on the 40th anniversary of Loving v Virginia, Mildred Loving endorsed the issue of Marriage Equality for ALL.
Lindoro Almaviva
August 3rd, 2010
Fabulously said.
Regan DuCasse
August 3rd, 2010
I have on many occasions pointed out here, and to our opposition that banning marriage against gay people has results to the lives of citizens similar to when slaves couldn’t marry.
Loss of the ability to keep and protect their own children was the cruelest example of that.
That regardless of potential of productivity and contribution, adults are being KEPT from doing what they clearly want and can do.
I have pointed out also that SELF RELIANCE is at the foundation of our country’s most conservative values, and the inability to be included in all of the rights that enables it, leaves one vulnerable to losing any one of them.
It’s the dominant masses who shamelessly exercise their ability or demand to, to be the arbiters of what self reliance and freedoms gay people should have.
And I also point out, that since legislation and courts cannot MAKE someone adhere to their marriage vows and support of their children, it makes no sense to KEEP any adults from fulfilling that when they WANT to.
Ta-Nehisi is right, that the freedom to marry, is about gay people protecting themselves and their families.
Not the other way around.
Since discriminating against gay people protects nothing.
Timothy Kincaid
August 3rd, 2010
I appreciate Coates for making this comparison. While I think that our community should be cautious in claiming the mantle of “just like blacks”, when African-Americans with credibility and a voice make the comparison it has validity and power.
Priya Lynn
August 3rd, 2010
I don’t know that anyone in our community has ever said we are “just like blacks”, they’ve just pointed out similarities where they exist.
Timothy Kincaid
August 3rd, 2010
And yes, thanks Regan for being our consistent voice on this issue.
lurker
August 3rd, 2010
“Throughout much of America, gays are effectively banned from marrying, not simply certain types of people, but any another compatible partner period.”
I’d argue that we are effectively barred from marrying *anyone*, not just a compatible parnter.
If I marry a heterosexual on false pretences, that’s fraud. And also probably reallly hard to pull off in this day and age of long courtships and soul-mate marriage expectations (unlike a generation or two ago when people married much younger and on a shorter-aquantance basis).
David
August 3rd, 2010
@Richard. That’s true, although after her death in 2008, the Loving family denied that Mildred ever supported marriage equality.
Mark F.
August 4th, 2010
Well, some blacks were prohibited from marrying the person they loved most, although presumably they might still find someone they wanted to marry. Gays, of course, can’t marry at all without generally being guilty of fraud, as a previous commentator noted.
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