Posted on 12/04/2003 11:37:40 AM PST by Holly_P
My husband and I married at the Denver County courthouse in 1999. The judge's secretary, a black woman, didn't hide her surprise that I was black and the groom was white. Even on the cusp of the 21st century in the progressive West, I guess it was still shocking for a black woman and a white man to marry.
But at least it was technically legal, unlike in Alabama at the time. It wasn't until 2000 that Alabama residents voted to remove a provision from that state's constitution that declared that "the legislature shall never pass any law to authorize or legalize any marriage between any white person and a Negro, or descendant of a Negro." Though this law, which was created in 1901, wasn't enforceable after 1967, clerks in some Alabama counties still denied marriage licenses to interracial couples.
Alabama was the last state to remove such laws from its books. But Colorado shouldn't exactly congratulate itself. This state didn't repeal its anti-miscegenation laws until 1957, six years after my house was built.
The case that changed everything was the aptly named Loving vs. Virginia. Richard Loving, a white man, and Mildred Jeter, a black woman, were married in Washington, D.C., in 1958. After they went back home to Virginia, they were arrested for having an "invalid" marriage license and violating the state's Racial Integrity Act. The Lovings pleaded guilty and were sentenced to a year in jail. The judge, Leon Bazile, suspended the sentence for 25 years as long as the Lovings left the state, though one could hardly call him sympathetic. In his ruling, he invoked God to uphold a racist law: "Almighty God created the races white, black, yellow, malay and red, and he placed them on separate continents. ... The fact that he separated the races shows that he did not intend for the races to mix."
So I get suspicious when people start talking about "protecting" marriage by banning people of the same sex from marrying. ("As if marriage were some kind of paradise," my husband thoughtfully adds.) I get suspicious when people say that gay marriage will force Americans to recognize "ungodly" relationships. The same arguments used to "defend" my marriage today were first used to deny ones like it. Blacks and whites intermarrying and interbreeding was the original slippery slope to the downfall of American civilization. Racist interpretation of religious teachings was just one justification used against blacks and whites marrying. Another common contention was that interracial marriage wasn't a healthy environment for children. Ultimately, all the rationalizations boiled down to this: Blacks were inferior and would contaminate whites with second-rate genes. Indeed, Virginia's Racial Integrity Act (passed after World War I) set out "to preserve the racial integrity of its citizens" and to prevent "the corruption of blood," "a mongrel breed of citizens" and "the obliteration of racial pride."
You can cloak bigotry in religion, pseudo-science or mom-and-apple-pie patriotism, but it's still bigotry. Only I suspect bigotry isn't the only impulse behind opposition to gay marriage. I think people are afraid. As a society, we are overwhelmed by swift technological, economic, social and cultural changes. The terrorist attacks of Sept. 11 made us feel even more vulnerable. Perhaps it's human nature to create a bogeyman and channel fears of the unknown toward it. But I don't see how trying to control (and legislate) the actions of others will give any of us a greater sense of control over our own lives.
Personally, I find the upcoming televised wedding of two people who "fell in love" during six weeks of taping a reality TV show scary. However, there's nothing to be done about it because straight people are free to marry for any reason, including money. Besides, who am I to judge?
Despite the judge's secretary and funny looks from a few others, my husband and I have been married almost five years. Granted, our marriage is no paradise, but it's happy more often than not, and it's legal. I wish all couples, gay and straight, the same.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Carleen Brice is taking time off from work to finish a novel. She lives in Denver with her husband, and can be reached at carleenbrice@aol.com . Applications for Colorado Voices are accepted in February.
Nonsense. Interracial marriage has a long and rich heritage, including Solomon and the Queen of Sheba. "Gay marriage" has never been accepted by any society anywhere during all of humanity's history.
Well, the thought of being married to Trista Rehn is scary regardless of the circumstances...
No, homosexuals can't use the same positions that straight people can. They're different.
LOL
Oh, but you can equate anal sex to black children? You need to take your bigoted trash and can it.
Just don't say elephant/donkey.
It doesn't matter whether it is or it isn't. Homosexuality is about preference or orientation, regardless of the cause.
On the other hand, let us not call it an identity, but simply a way to be. A way to be inside that has to do with sexuality. Some see the behavior as sinful. OK. I don't, but I understand there are traditions in this country that matter which do see it that way. More power to them.
I despise elevating everything to an identity so that all politics becomes identity politics.
I am passionately interested in this cause, which is to continue the institution of marriage the way it is now. I do not understand why these threads degenerate into a shouting match over whether or not homosexuality is inborn. What difference does it make?
But. Civil marriage is not a right. It is a civil institution regulated by each state. There are good reasons to maintain this institution as the union of one man and one woman.
Add another one to the list. My late husband was also a white guy and there is no way that I would equate being able to marry outside one's race to homosexual marriage.
Personally, I'm pretty sick of gays (especially white males) trying to say they're struggles are similar to those of blacks who were discriminated against by law until fairly recently.
Exactly. Let the homosexuals argue their validity on their own merit then. Why must homosexuals and homosexual cheerleaders mention comparisons to blacks in order to further their agenda? Every time this subject comes up, the insulting inevitable comparison occurs. Would you like your children or family constantly compared to homosexuality?
Let them argue their case on their own. I don't think they can do it.
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