Posted by
Playful Walrus on Tuesday, October 28, 2008 3:48:35 PM
Marriage neutering activists frequently cite prohibitions in the past against "interracial"* marriage as why the African-American voter should especially support marriage neutering and vote "No on Prop 8". The claim goes that because African-Americans in some parts of the country in the past could not marry white people, they should identify with the inability for man to marry a man and have it licensed, or a woman to marry a woman, and they should fight for marriage neutering.
When one takes a closer look at the situation, though, if African-Americans, as a group, have something with which to identify in this case, it is actually the denial of their voting rights. More African-Americans were denied their voting rights than were ever prevented from marrying a white person.
If the pollsters are to be believed, African-Americans, as a classification, strongly supported Prop 22. And yet their votes were cast aside by a court based on a made-up "right" and based on a demand to treat different kinds of voluntary associations equally. In other words, they were denied their voting rights in favor of imaginary rights demanded by an even smaller minority.
Interracial marriage has been readily understood to be marriage by every major religion (though not all sects) all throughout history around the world. Some places in this country banned it (a true ban, as I explain below... not simply "refusing to license"). Notice that the people who passed those laws did not also set up laws to ban same-sex couples from getting married – because such a thing had never been recognized in the first place. Indeed, in the case that shot down bans on interracial marriage – Loving v. Virginia, no mention is made of same-sex couples. Same-sex marriage is a modern invention modeled after marriage - which was not created by the state but merely recognized - but missing the key element in marriage that is of interest to society. This modern invention is designed for the appropriation of government benefits (already provided to domestic partners in California) and public affirmation (which should be up to the public).
If marriage is about forming a microcosm of society for the sake of perpetuating it – giving children both a mother and a father and honoring masculinity and femininity, then "interracial" marriage is the same kind of voluntary association as any other marriage. However, two men or two women, of any race, are not. Skin color is incidental to marriage, while sex is inherent to it. Thus, the comparison to same-sex "marriage" doesn’t hold up. Interracial marriage is how we got Tiger Woods. Who has ever been conceived by sodomy between two men?
Today, people are able to live their lives together without a marriage license, while in the past, property owners and employers could refuse to deal with people who were "shacking up" and cohabitation could be prosecuted. Thus, a ban on interracial marriage was a form of segregation and a denial of the freedom of association. It was truly a ban. Now, people are free to cohabitate without social or legal repercussions, and Proposition 8 will not ban them from doing so.
But having had wrong laws regarding marriage licensing in the past does not mean that all laws regarding marriage licensing are wrong. Most people calling for marriage neutering are in favor of some form of discrimination when it comes to issuing marriage licenses - just not excluding monosexual couples. Everyone involved wants some form of discrimination. Must a monosexual couple be treated the same as a couple uniting both of the sexes? Why, when so many laws treat different kinds of voluntarily associations differently?
In addition to rejecting the attempt to confuse the issue with a legitimate civil rights fight from the past, the African-American community should vote to reclaim the voting rights by voting YES on Prop 8.
*I maintain that we are all one race – human, and this “interracial” is an artificial term in this case, in my opinion.