There is a striking similarity between the arguments used to justify anti-miscegenation laws and the arguments put forward today against gay marriage. Tradition, a respect for majority opinion, religion, science, sociology — all were invoked with great somberness and much citation of experts and their research. The prejudice that propped up all the arguments — and, for us, invalidates them — was invisible or inevitable to their proponents.
“Evolution on gay marriage?” Oakland Tribune,Jul 20, 2003
Take the quiz, and see for yourself.
Last month was the anniversary of Loving v. Virginia, in which the United States Supreme Court declared unconstitutional Virginia’s anti-miscegenation statute, the “Racial Integrity Act of 1924“, thereby overturning Pace v. Alabama (1883), and annulling all race-based legal restrictions on marriage in the United States.
The reasoning behind such legislation lives on, however.
Arguments against same-sex marriage are nearly identical to those used to condemn “inter-racial” marriage. Discrimination against both have been justified by tradition based on “natural law”, and the opponents of both types of marriage have used the Bible to justify legislated discrimination. Both have attempted to add to the Constitution words governing which types of marriage the state may sanction, yet both claim their efforts to exclude certain types of citizens from marriage are somehow “non-discriminatory”. The parallel is uncomfortably close, as anti-miscegenation laws have only recently been repealed across the United States.
A history of discrimination and persecution of inter-racial marriage.
In the 1660s, Maryland became the first colony to prohibit interracial marriages.By 1750, all the southern colonies as well as Massachusetts and Pennsylvania made interracial marriages illegal. For example, Virginia had a law stating that “All marriages between a white person and a colored person shall be absolutely void without any decree of divorce or other legal process.” (Code Ann. A7 20-57)
In Maryland, when slavery was introduced in 1664, “the law also prohibited marriages between white women and black men…. between 1935 and 1967, the law was extended to forbid marriage between Malaysians with blacks and whites. The law was finally repealed in 1967.”
During the 1950s, half of the states still had laws prohibiting interracial marriage.By the early 1960’s at least 41 states had enacted anti-miscegenation statutes.
The apologists for these laws insisted that they were not “discriminatory,” as one Republican congressman from Illinois phrased it, because it “applies equally to men and women.”
Legal arguments used claims that interracial marriage was unnatural and immoral in order to find a way around the Fourteenth Amendment’s guarantee of “equal protection under the laws.”
How did judges do this? They insisted that because miscegenation laws punished both the black and white partners to an interracial marriage, they affected blacks and whites “equally.” This argument, which is usually called the equal application claim, was hammered out in state supreme courts in the late 1870s, endorsed by the United States Supreme Court in 1882, and would be repeated by judges for the next 85 years.
“Legislation prohibiting racial inter-marriage was justified as unbending tradition rooted in received natural law.”
“Miscegenation violates God’s Law (natural Law) of reproduction, no matter how much Billy Graham and his ilk put their seal of approval on it. This inter-mingling is unknown to all other species. It is only man who interferes with God’s law. It has been proven that if the horse mates with a zebra, it will produce offspring with zebra stripes for generations to come. The lion will not mate with the tiger, unless man forces it to. In many cases of artificial, or forced interbreeding, as between a horse and a donkey, the offspring becomes incapable of reproduction.”
As the New York Times (Feb. 23, 1911, p. 23) phrased it: The “white and black races should live apart. Their hybridization forms a degenerate type; anthropologists declare that some of the most cruel and treacherous specimens of humanity are to be found among “mottled” negroes.”
A Georgia court wrote that such unions are “not only unnatural, but … always productive of deplorable results,” such as increased effeminate behavior in the population. “They are productive of evil, and evil only, without any corresponding good … (in accordance with) the God of nature.”
Similarly, the Georgia Supreme Court ruled that:
“…moral or social equality between the different races…does not in fact exist, and never can. The God of nature made it otherwise, and no human law can produce it, and no human tribunal can enforce it. There are gradations and classes throughout the universe. From the tallest archangel in Heaven, down to the meanest reptile on earth, moral and social inequalities exist, and must continue to exist throughout all eternity.”
This type of legal marriage must be forbidden, said a Republican senator from Wisconsin, “simply because natural instinct revolts at it as wrong.”
Attempts to Amend the Constitution
In 1871, Representative Andrew King (D-Missouri) was the first politician in Congress to propose a constitutional amendment to make interracial marriage illegal nation-wide. King proposed this amendment because he feared that the Fourteenth Amendment, ratified in 1868 to give equal civil rights to the emancipated ex-slaves (the Freedmen) as part of the process of Reconstruction, would render laws against interracial marriage unconstitutional.
In December 1912 and January 1913, Representative Seaborn Roddenbery (D-Georgia) again introduced a proposal in the United States House of Representatives to insert a prohibition of miscegenation into the US Constitution and thus create a nation-wide ban on interracial marriage.
Mr. Roddenberry’s proposed amendment, in December 1912, stated, ”Intermarriage between Negroes or persons of color and Caucasians . . . is forever prohibited.” He took this action, he said, because some states were permitting marriages that were ”abhorrent and repugnant,” and he aimed to ”exterminate now this debasing, ultrademoralizing, un-American and inhuman leprosy.”
”Let this condition go on if you will,” Mr. Roddenberry warned. ”At some day, perhaps remote, it will be a question always whether or not the solemnizing of matrimony in the North is between two descendants of our Anglo-Saxon fathers and mothers or whether it be of a mixed blood descended from the orangutan-trodden shores of far-off Africa.”
The Bible says it is wrong.
According to the Community Relations Coordinator at Bob Jones University, which prohibited inter-racial dating as late as 2000:
God has separated people for His own purpose. He has erected barriers between the nations, not only land and sea barriers, but also ethnic, cultural, and language barriers. God has made people different one from another and intends those differences to remain.. Bob Jones University is opposed to intermarriage of the races because it breaks down the barriers God has established. It mixes that which God separated and intends to keep separate. Every effort in world history to bring the world together has demonstrated man’s self-reliance and his unwillingness to remain as God ordains. The attempts at one-worldism have been to devise a system without God and have fostered the promotion of a unity designed to give the world strength so that God is not needed and can be overthrown.
Although there is no verse in the Bible that dogmatically says that races should not intermarry, the whole plan of God as He has dealt with the races down through the ages indicates that interracial marriage is not best for man. We do believe we see principles, not specific verses, to give us direction for the avoidance of it.
The people who built the Tower of Babel were seeking a man-glorifying unity which God has not ordained (Gen. 11:4-6). Much of the agitation for intermarriage among the races today is for the same reason. It is promoted by one-worlders, and we oppose it for the same reason that we oppose religious ecumenism, globalism, one-world economy, one-world police force, unisex, etc. When Jesus Christ returns to the earth, He will establish world unity, but until then, a divided earth seems to be His plan.
There are verses in support of this position, just as there are in support of those who want to legislate their dislike of homosexuality.
After the Fall, what sort of marriages were introduced by men, which were productive of great evil?
“And it came to pass, when men began to multiply on the face of the earth, and daughters were born unto them, that the sons of God saw the daughters of men that they were fair; and they took them wives of all which they chose.” Gen. 6:1,2.
Not only was there plurality of wives, which in itself is an evil, but the “sons of God,” descending from Seth, married the “daughters of men,” the descendants from the idolatrous line of Cain, and thus corrupted the seed, or church, of God itself. All the barriers against evil thus being broken down, the whole race was soon corrupted, violence filled the earth, and the flood followed.
What restriction did God make respecting marriages in Israel?
“Let them marry to whom they think best; only to the family of the tribe of their father shall they marry.” Num. 36:6.
What prohibition did God give His chosen people against intermarrying with the heathen nations about them, and why?
“Neither shalt thou make marriages with them; thy daughter thou shalt not give unto his son, nor his daughter shalt thou take unto thy son. For they will turn away thy son from following Me, that they may serve other gods: so will the anger of the Lord be kindled against you, and destroy thee suddenly.” Deut. 7:3,4.
Intermarriage with the ungodly was the mistake made by the professed people of God before the flood, and God did not wish Israel to repeat that folly.
What instruction is given in the New Testament regarding marriage with unbelievers?
“Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers: for what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? and what communion hath light with darkness? and what concord hath Christ with Belial? or what part hath he that believeth with an infidel? and what agreement hath the temple of God with idols? for ye are the temple of the living God.” 2 Cor. 6:14-16.
This instruction forbids all compromising partnerships. Marriage of believers with unbelievers has ever been a snare by which Satan has captured many earnest souls who thought they could win the unbelieving, but in most cases have themselves drifted away from the moorings of faith into doubt, backsliding, and loss of religion. It was one of Israel’s constant dangers, against which God warned them repeatedly. “Give not your daughters unto their sons, neither take their daughters unto your sons, nor seek their peace [by such compromise] or their wealth forever.” Ezra 9:12. See also Ex. 34:14-16; Judges 14:1-3. Ezra 9 and 10; and Neh. 13:23-27.
In sum, therefore:
“Almighty God created the races, white, black, yellow, Malay, and red and placed them on separate continents, and but for the interference with his arrangement there would be no cause for such marriages. The fact that he separated the races shows that he did not intend the races to mix.”
– Judge Bazile, Caroline County, VA, 1965
They were sincere, but should Christians have seen through this pseudo-Biblical nonsense?
How could Christians 140 years ago, or even 40 years ago, have discerned the truth about these hateful statements and these false Biblical arguments? They could have seen through the hatred if they had only taken to heart the words of the man they call the savior: if they had applied the litmus test of Jesus. Jesus called on his followers to judge whether or not a religious teaching brought “good fruit” or “bad fruit.”
Inter-racial unions were, somehow, a threat to “conventional” marriage.
A U.S. representative from Georgia declared that allowing this type of marriage “necessarily involves (the) degradation” of conventional marriage, an institution that “deserves admiration rather than execration.”
“The next step will be (the demand for) a law allowing them, without restraint, to … have free and unrestrained social intercourse with your unmarried sons and daughters,” warned a Kentucky congressman. “It is bound to come to that. There is no disguising the fact. And the sooner the alarm is given and the people take heed, the better it will be for our civilization.”
These types of marriages are “abominable,” according to Virginia law. If allowed, they would “pollute” America.
Attorneys for the state of Tennessee argued that such unions should be illegal because they are “distasteful to our people and unfit to produce the human race.” The state Supreme Court agreed, declaring these types of marriages would be “a calamity full of the saddest and gloomiest portent to the generations that are to come after us.”
Lawyers for California insisted that a ban on this type of marriage is necessary to prevent “traditional marriage from being contaminated by the recognition of relationships that are physically and mentally inferior,” and entered into by “the dregs of society.”
The times a changin’ slowly
In 1998, a clause that prohibited “marriage of a white person with a Negro or mulatto or a person who shall have one-eighth or more Negro blood” was removed South Carolina’s state constitution. According to a Mason-Dixon poll four months before the vote, 22% of South Carolina voters were opposed to the removal of this clause. It had been introduced in 1895.
In Alabama, it took until 2000 to remove these laws. A referendum was passed that removed this article from the Alabama State Constitution:
“The Legislature shall never pass any law to authorize or legalize any marriage between any white person and a Negro, or a descendant of a Negro.” –Alabama State Constitution, Article IV, Section 102
This section was introduced in 1901. According to a poll conducted by the Mobile Register in September of 2000, 19% of voters said that they would not remove section 102. This is comparable to the 22% in South Carolina. However, 64% said that they would vote to remove it. While this is a majority, it is still far from a unanimous vote.
Possible objections to this historical analogy.
1. The Bible really isn’t against inter-racial marriage, even though it was so used for hundreds of years.
2. Same-sex marriages really ARE a threat, somehow, to someone, somewhere.
I am sure readers will volunteer other objections.
misc. course stuff 
All black’s, white, Jews, gays, Arabs, Muslims, natives, anyone else.. has a right to live peacefully without verbal or physical abuses. We also all strive for acceptance of others, gays included, but when adulterers or the gays are next trying for Biblical acceptance of their undeniable immoral lifestyle, they certainly have gone to far.. they can never have it.. need to give upon at this absurdity. One thing is very very apparent to me is how so many people do even lie in their support of gay marriages.. and specially they twist Bible verses out of context.. and even refer to other distorted Bible passages that are unrelated.. only foolish persons would try to do that because any knowledgeable Bible scholar can see still their ignorance of the Bible.. so next they basically still have a problem with the Bible so they next falsely try to discredit that as well.. and in the process offend more religious persons and win even less religious support too. When a naive persons is so foolish to say that Apostle Paul does not represent Jesus views, when Jesus had personally selected apostle Paul, that same persons shows his own total ignorance now of God, Jesus, the Holy Spirit, the Bible.. and what he still wants the Christian’s, Biblical support for the gays.. dream on.. HE WILL NEVER NEVER EVER GET IT.. THAT IS THE REALITY! SO LIVE WITHOUT IT
Wow – nonconformer – did your ancestors write that article in the Alabama State Constitution?
Seriously though, however one believes homosexuality is seen in the eyes of God, it is of overwhelming importance to me to understand without a doubt the arguements that were long held to by the Church against inter-racial marriage. That is not to say homosexuality may not be a different issue with a different reason – and there is a statement in Leviticus which Paul refers to that says it is an abomination. But we do owe it to our community, to the church and to one another to look at this deeply with an open mind. I would love to say we all obviously realize that inter-racial marriage is beloved in the eyes of God and that the Church’s guidance and beliefs for centuries were wrong – but reading the stats from SC in 1998 and AL in 2000 I’m not sure that’s a given. I will just say that I am determined to allow my conceptions to be challenged as I continue to consider this complex issue in faith.
Race is an immutable, human characteristic.
The choice to go homosexual is mutable.
Men and women of different races, if they marry, still fit the Godly model of the marital unit — that is, a man, as husband, and a woman, as his wife. Who is the husband and who is the wife in a so-called “same-sex ‘marriage'”?
Really? So, when exactly did you CHOOSE to be straight?
==”The fact that he separated the races shows that he did not intend the races to mix.”==
Of course, that is human rationalizing posing as “reasoning.”
All God joined is a man, as husband, and a woman, as his wife. He didn’t say that a white man must take a white wife.
However, He made it abundantly clear that the only, Godly, matrimonial relationship is between a man, as husband, and a woman, as his wife. Seeing that in the Word of God clears up what He meant where He says that what we now call “homosexuality” as an “abomination.”
It says that once – calling not only homosexuality an abomination but a woman’s menstrual cycles a curse too. Many things are not as they would have been in the garden of Eden, all our sins and many many things. Perhaps homosexuality would have never occurred in humans – but it does. That one verse in Leviticus being the only thing said leaves room for interpretaion. The fact Jesus never mentions it, in Roman times no less, is telling. The church is too concerned with this. And the church is beyond discriminatory and hateful in it’s dealings with their homosexual “neighbors”.
==Inter-racial unions were, somehow, a threat to “conventional” marriage. ==
And, yet, bottom line, that could never be squared up with the Word of God Which says that God joined a man, as husband, and a woman, as his wife. God didn’t say that a white man must marry a white woman. God didn’t say that a man, claiming to be whatever, couldn’t marry a woman who claims to be whatever.
We can see, or determine — as in the case of a Texas woman who found out that she is 1/32 Black — that a person is a particular race. Race is a physical characteristic.
What’s the physical characteristic that says that a person is what he claims, a homosexual?
Those who claim to be homosexual want us to doubt Jesus: “Are YOU the One, or do we look for another?”
They want us to help them water down Jesus, make Him look like another who accepts their homosexuality, even though, as God — Jesus was God on Earth — He condemned what we now call “homosexuality” as an “abomination.” [But before He condemned it as an “abomination,” He told Mankind NOT TO DO IT! Given that He joins a man and a woman, we can see why]
An academic. No wonder.
“An academic. No wonder.”
I’ll bite. In what sense is it “no wonder”?
The arguments against interracial are the same as the ones against homosexual. At the root, people believe such marriages shouldn’t happen because they think it’s gross. They say this in many different ways, it’s unnatural, it’s wrong, it’s an obination. It ‘compromises then integrity of marriage.’ Really they just think its disgusting. That’s okay, people can believe whatever they want is gross. People have a right to believe something is gross. When you make legislation against someone because you think they’re gross, that’s true discrimination. Why pick on the kid on the playground who eats paste, or picks their nose? Why claim they entitled to fewer American rights than you do because they’re ‘gross’? They’re not hurting anyone, you’re just grossed out. Homosexual marriages don’t hurt anyone, people are just grossed out. Grow up America. Just because things have always been a certain way, doesn’t mean they are right. Being grossed out about something, and others not doesn’t mean they’re hurting you. Truly you are hurting them by picking on them. Mind your own business America, quick picking on people who are different than you.
==The arguments against interracial are the same as the ones against homosexual. ==
The interracial marriage is that of a man, as husband, and a woman, as his wife. As such, it agrees with God’s template for “marriage.”
So, no, they are not the same arguments.
Yes, the arguments ARE the same, as outlined in the blog. If you disagree you will need to break the argument down. Your arbitrary lines you decided to draw in the sand are meaningless.
Even though many would like to change it, we live in a nation built on concepts of “one nation under GOD!” that means we should use the bible as a reference. The most important reference EVER, and so many won’t adhere to that, and so many Christians accept these things, i know many gays that are good hearted great people, i don’t judge… but i disagree, but who am i to be rude about it. i don’t approve, but i still love them. What else can one do?
“I can do all things in Christ, who strengthens me.”
*facepalm* Oh, you really went THERE?? Sweetie, you need to brush up on your American history if you really believe that America was built on the concept of “one nation under God”.
===The most important reference EVER, and so many won’t adhere to that, and so many Christians accept these things, i know many gays that are good hearted great people, i don’t judge…===
The bible says many things. Do you eat pork? How about some bacon with your eggs? You do realize that you are eating the meat of a cloven hooved animal which is wrong according to the bible. Not to mention Jesus cast the devil into a herd of swine (PIGS … PORK is pig if you don’t know)
Do you sell your daughers into slavery?
Do you let the women into the church during “that time of the month”?
Do you require your women to go through complex clensing rituals for many days after that time of the month to become clean again?
Do you cut your hair with scissors (shears if you want the old term)? Those are instruments of Baal and their use is a no-no.
Do you cut or marr thy beard? Again, not supposed to do that.
Do you travel more than 20 paces from your home on the sabbath? Again, that is a no-no.
Do you put to death those children that curse their parents?
The bible says that a lot of stuff is wrong. And so if it is “the most impotant reference” why are all these things ignored?
Some want to claim that the ban on eating port doesn’t apply to christians. I do recall Jesus saying that he did not come to change the old laws … if he didn’t come to change them then they still must be in effect. Others want to claim that the prohibition against pork was because of the lack of refrigeration and poor cooking methods of the time … I don’t recall anywhere in the new testament of revelations saying that in the future there will be a box that will keep stuff cold and you can start eating pork. Seems to me that christians just don’t want to give up their bacon or pork chops or hot dogs even though the bible says you are not supposed to eat it.
The author is correct that there are similarities between the arguments against homosexual union and interracial marriage.
I wonder, though, if he realizes that the argument for homosexual union and interracial marriage is identical. It goes something like this:
1.) To be fully human is to be fully in control of your own life.
2.) Only those things you choose should be allowed to control you.
3.) Since we have not chosen our race or sex, neither our race or our sex should determine what we are allowed to do.
4.) Since bans on interracial marriage and homosexual union prohibit people from doing certain things because of something no one can change or choose, these bans are oppressive and “dehumanizing” (see rule 1).
5.) Therefore all bans on homosexual union and interracial marriage must go.
I have a few questions for those who follow this line of thinking:
1.) Is your race and sex the only part of you that you did not choose? Did you choose your height? What about your attractiveness? Surely, attractive people are very privileged in dating, marriage and even in their careers.
2.) Is a law the only way one group of people oppresses the other? What about informal modes of discrimination, “oppression”, etc.?
3.) Why is a decision “imposed” on you necessarily “oppressive” to you? How many of you chose to live? Wasn’t it your parents’ decision to bring you into this world? Do you regard all pregnancies as crimes against the little one, who after all was never consulted about this “life” business.
Liberalism, folks, is a dead end. At the terminus, you’ll find mindless conformity (a.k.a. “equality”), homogenous diversity–the same mix everywhere–and sexual confusion, frustration and perversion. Whateve pleasures you find there are short-lived
Your rant makes NO sense. I’m not even sure what your argument is here. You build up a decent way to look at human rights and then basically say it’s worthless because we don’t chose our heights. Huh?!?!
And I’ll take liberalism any day over your archaic brand of homophobia and racism, which is the REAL confusion!
I wonder if everyone here who is arguing in favour of the religious point of view follows the Bible EXACTLY as is stated?
I understand the argument against homosexual marriage, however, at one point there WAS the argument against inter-racial marriage, again from a religious point of view. We live in a country (I come from Australia so I’m referring to Australia and the USA) where you have the right to choose to be religious or not. Although we are defined as a Christian nation something like 10% of us go to Church? So let’s not argue like we’re ALL religious God-loving people when clearly, we are not. If you want to argue, argue with something everyone believes, you wouldn’t argue in Chinese to a German person, so don’t argue with religion to an atheist.
Now addressing all of you who say we need to follow the Bible. I am NOT saying you’re not allowed to, and likewise you have NO RIGHT to tell me that I must follow it. I do believe that the Bible says “wives submit to your husbands” from this verse came the arguments against women’s right, against women being able to work, against women being equal. Wives submit to your husbands? SUBMIT? Obviously women are not as important, their husband’s views are more accurate, right and have more importance. If you’re going to argue against homosexual marriage, I want to see a bunch of you arguing that women should be following their husbands and be housewives, let’s see how well that goes down.
Continuing on, I also believe that divorce is not allowed under the Bible. “And he shall leave his mother and father to be with his wife and they shall become one flesh”? (dont quote me exactly, I am in no way religious). Why have you all given up on divorce? Where are the groups of protestors trying to criminalise divorce? No where. Because once something is legalised all of a sudden its moral, and you have nothing more to say except that you “wouldn’t personally do it”. Exactly. I’m not saying EVERYONE should be FORCED to enter into a homosexual marriage, I’m saying that the world needs more love not less and what two people do together, is NONE of your business unless you’re one of the parties. You are saying that EVERYONE should be made to enter into a heterosexual marriage if they want to get married, I am saying people should have the OPTION. I’m not forcing you into something, I don’t understand why you people seem to think that it’s okay to sit there cowering behind your book attempting to dictate how other people live their lives.
If we all were religious and got married for the religious purposes your arguments would have alot more merit. Instead ANYONE is allowed to enter into a heterosexual marriage, religious or not, young or old, in love or for money, although ORIGINALLY marriage was a religious ceremony. True? So if atheists are allowed to be married then your homosexual marriage argument has no merit.
I also believe that marriage was preping for children? If I’mm not mistaken that was God’s plan? Why is it not a big deal if two people get married and don’t want children? That’s okay? So you follow the Bible when it suits you, but apart from that you do your own thing?
Unless every religious woman on here is submitting to her husband, I don’t understand why you think it’s okay to preach the Bible when you don’t follow it.
Why don’t I see all of you lobbying against divorce and arguing that only religious people should be able to get married?
Also, to the obnoxious person above who stated that homosexuals “chose” to be gay. How dare you. I can only imagine the difficulties you’ve faced in your life, as a straight person. How awful that must be for you. No one looks down on you, you don’t get harassed by religious people, you’re allowed to get married, adopt and you can walk down the road with your partner without fear of getting beaten to a pulp. Your life must be so difficult.
I’m only going to state this once, you may not agree with homosexual marriage, and argue against it all you like.
HOWEVER.
No one chooses to be gay.
No one.
They don’t wake up in the morning and say “i wanna be abused, harassed and have people disgusted with me today, I’m going to be homosexual”
You’re either born gay or you’re not. If you’re not, thank God that you aren’t because the kinds of things those people go through is probably more than you could handle.
I’m not asking for an autobiography on how difficult your life has been as a straight person. I’m sure you’ve had difficulties, everyone has. But i think it’s something different when you have, what must feel like, an entire nation lobbying against your love.
Love is Love
God wants more of it, not less
Try not to rip people to pieces the minute you realise they don’t have the same view point as you, everyone is fighting their own battle.