in the early 60’s, when martin luther king jr was blazing trails as a civil rights leader, something very heinous and wrong was happening in our country. although it happened with more frequency down south, it also happened elsewhere. this was in the time before all people were seen to be equal and only the color of their skin was enought to make them seem inferior to people differently colored. i type that like it was so long ago, but there are still people who believe that someone’s skin color can make them less a person. i feel sorry for those people…
to go on to what i was saying, it used to be against the law for people of different races to marry each other. the marrying of someone outside one’s race is called miscegenation and many laws were passed to prevent this from happening. the only state that never tried to pass an anti-miscegenation law is vermont. go figure. the first was passed in massachusetts in 1705.
the battle to have anti-miscegenation laws repealed centered around the united states constitution, specifically the fourteenth amendment, which reads:
AMENDMENT XIV
SECTION. 1. All persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of theUnited States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.
SECTION. 2. Representatives shall be apportioned among the several States according to their respective numbers, counting the whole number of persons in each State, excluding Indians not taxed. But when the right to vote at any election for the choice of electors for President and Vice President of the United States, Representatives in Congress, the Executive andJudicial officers of a State, or the members of the Legislature
thereof, is denied to any of the male inhabitants of such State, being twenty-one years of age, and citizens of the United States, or in any way abridged, except for participation in rebellion, or other crime, the basis of representation therein shall be reduced in the proportion which the number of such male citizens shall bear to the whole number of male citizens twentyone years of age in such State.
SECTION. 3. No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any State, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any State legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability.
SECTION. 4. The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for payment of pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion, shall not be questioned. But neither the United States nor any State shall assume or pay any debt or obligation incurred in aid of insurrection or rebellion against the United States, or any claim for the loss or emancipation of any
slave; but all such debts, obligations and claims shall be held illegal and void.
SECTION. 5. The Congress shall have power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article.
the supreme court case that overturned these laws was one called loving v. virginia, where a couple had been married in the district of columbia and returned to virginia where they were charged with violating virginia’s law banning interracial marriages. they both pled guilty and were sentenced to one year in prison, their sentences suspended to probation for twenty-five years on the condition that they leave virginia. they moved to the district of columbia and then began their court fight.
in the supreme court decision, the justices wrote:
Marriage is one of the "basic civil rights of man," fundamental to our very existence and survival…. To deny this fundamental freedom on so unsupportable a basis as the racial classifications embodied in these statutes, classifications so directly subversive of the principle of equality at the heart of the Fourteenth Amendment, is surely to deprive all the State’s citizens of liberty without due process of law. The Fourteenth Amendment requires that the freedom of choice to marry not be restricted by invidious racial discriminations. Under our Constitution, the freedom to marry, or not marry, a person of another race resides with the individual and cannot be infringed by the State.
the immediate and instantaneous reaction/question i had upon first studying this case in a gender studies class was :
how can this supreme court ruling exist and not apply to same sex marriages?
happy martin luther king, jr. day.
sources:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loving_v._Virginia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-miscegenation_laws
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourteenth_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution
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