October 28, 2008
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Why I am Voting No on Proposition 8
As far back as the late seventeenth century, when the thirteen colonies were established, laws banning the intermarriage of Whites and Blacks were enacted.
In the United States, anti-miscegenation laws (also known as miscegenation laws) were state laws passed by individual states to prohibit miscegenation, or interracial marriage and interracial sex. These laws prohibited the solemnization of weddings between persons of different races and prohibited the officiating of such ceremonies and made miscegenation a felony. All anti-miscegenation laws banned the marriage of Whites and non-White groups, primarily Blacks, but often also Native Americans, Mexicans, and Asians, including Filipinos. In many states, anti-miscegenation laws also criminalized cohabitation and sex between Whites and non-Whites. In addition, the state of Oklahoma in 1908 banned marriage “between a person of African descent” and “any person not of African descent”, and Kentucky and Louisiana in 1932 banned marriage between Native Americans and African Americans.
Although several anti-miscegenation amendments were proposed in United States Congress, a nation-wide law against racially mixed marriages was never enacted. From the 19th century into the 1950s, most US states enforced anti-miscegenation laws. From 1913 to 1948, 30 out of the then 48 states did so. In 1967, the United States Supreme Court unanimously ruled in Loving v. Virginia that anti-miscegenation laws were unconstitutional. With this ruling, these laws were no longer in effect in the remaining 16 states that at the time still enforced them.
Fast forward to 2008, and people are trying to ban the intermarriage of same-sex couples in California by amending the California Constitution with a new section that reads, “only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California.” Replace all the colors of people with their sexual preference and we have the same bigoted agenda. I hear people justify Proposition 8 by saying that homosexuality is a sin, and same-sex couples should not be able to marry.
Others justify it by saying that civil unions are the same thing. People used to think that separate schools for Whites and non-Whites were equal. Then the Brown v. Board decision ruled that “separate educational facilities are inherently unequal.”
From a religious perspective, if God is all about love, and God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son, then how can I reconcile restricting who can express their love to the world and to one another in the most generally accepted and binding manner? There is confusion about civil unions and what rights are afforded under civil unions. If civil unions are the same as marriages, then why not call it a marriage? Technically and essentially, they look the same on paper. Realistically, they are not.
From an economic perspective, this is a source of revenue for city governments. I am not sure about the number of same-sex marriages that would take place, but the windfall could be quite large. This does not mean that we should go out and legalize prostitution because the government can get money out of it, but in the grand scheme of things, it is a factor.
There was a time when all non-Whites were subhuman, justifying concepts of slavery, segregation, racism, benevolent assimilation, voting restrictions, landowner restrictions, anti-miscegenation laws, etc. It looks as though that time has not quite passed.
