With Prop 8, Loving Should Be Everyone's Guide

On November 4, California voters will face the choice of whether they wish to amend our state's Constitution to take away the existing right of same-sex couples to marry. The passage of Proposition 8 would mark the first time in our state's history that the Constitution has been amended to rescind rights, rather than to grant them.

You'd think the choice were pretty obvious, right? Yet regardless of which poll you read, it's clear California is split tightly down the middle on this issue, and surprisingly, African Americans and Latinos -- two minorities with long histories of facing discrimination themselves -- both have majorities of voters supporting elimination of marriage rights for gay and lesbian people.

In light of that, I thought I'd recount brief a story from history that I hope will serve as a guide to all voters.

In the debate that has raged since the California Supreme Court first legalized same-sex marriages in May of this year, parallels to our nation's struggle with interracial marriage have been both drawn and disputed.

Even if the parallels aren't exact, there is still much we can learn -- about love, about morals, and about judgment. The most poignant of these lessons lies in the story of Mildred and Richard Loving, a black woman and white man whose out-of-state marriage led to their arrest in Virginia, and later sparked the seminal US Supreme Court decision Loving v. Virginia (1967), which invalidated all laws against interracial marriage in the United States.

In 1958, the year the Lovings married and were arrested, public opinion and prejudice against interracial couples ran high throughout the country. Half the states had formal legal bans against interracial marriage, two of them in state Constitutions. In the south, both judges and preachers thundered against miscegenation, citing both their personal interpretation of the Bible and dire threats to public morality. Sound familiar? One state where such attitudes prevailed was the Commonwealth of Virginia, where miscegenation was punishable by imprisonment. To circumvent that ban, Mildred and Richard Loving traveled to the District of Columbia, where they were legally married.

Soon after returning to Virginia, the Lovings were arrested by deputy sheriffs who burst into their home in the middle of the night, tipped off about illegal interracial cohabitation. Their marriage certificate was no defense. Mildred and Richard were jailed and tried for violating the Commonwealth's Racial Integrity Act. To avoid prison, they pleaded guilty and agreed to be exiled and not return to Virginia for 25 years, not even to visit family.

Mildred Loving passed away this summer. While she was never a political or public person, she did, in June 2007, issue a rare, poignant statement for the 40th anniversary of the US Supreme Court decision. In it, she affirmed her belief in everyone's right to marry the person they love.

"Not a day goes by that I don't think of Richard and our love, our right to marry, and how much it meant to me to have that freedom to marry the person precious to me, even if others thought he was the "wrong kind of person" for me to marry. I believe all Americans, no matter their race, no matter their sex, no matter their sexual orientation, should have that same freedom to marry."

This then, lies at the heart of the choice Californians face with Proposition 8:

Are we to honor our state's tradition of treating everyone equally, enshrined in moments like our own Supreme Court's 1948 decision, which overturned the ban on interracial marriage two decades ahead of our nation's Supreme Court? Or are we to follow the example of a state like Alabama, which held on to its Constitutional ban until the year 2000?

Irrespective of how some may feel about marriage or activist judges, we should all take a moment to actually read our Supreme Court's calm and eloquent reasoning on the right of same-sex couples to marry. Much in that decision echoes the poignant message of Mildred Loving. Speaking for the majority of the Court in May 2008, Chief Justice Ronald George wrote:

"The right to marry is not properly viewed simply as a benefit or privilege that a government may establish or abolish as it sees fit, but rather that the right constitutes a basic civil or human right of all people."

So: On November 4, who will you stand with: Mildred Loving, or those who presumed it upon themselves to legislate whom she had the right to love?

Comments

[LollieDotCom]

If California had been papered with this before November 4th, Prop 8 would never have passed.

http://www.freedomtomarry.org/pdfs/mildred_loving-statement.pdf

Mildred Loving's full statement about freedom to marry. Everyone should read it. If you don't cry when you read it, you're not a human being. Please use your favorite social sites to buzz it up.

There is only one cure for ignorance - and that's education.

http://www.freedomtomarry.org/pdfs/mildred_loving-statement.pdf

[JohnBisceglia]

The insanity that needs to stop is the empowerment of HATE GROUPS through fund-raisers and propositions whose sole purpose is to strip away family & children's rights.

[wembles]

"Beginning last night and continuing this morning a coordinated cyber attack on the No On 8 website prevented some donors from being able to contribute. This attack is being investigated by federal authorities. Fortunately, there was no breach in security and we are again able to accept contributions online.

As if that attack isn't outrageous enough, at a recent Prop 8 rally an official campaign spokesman actually compared the right of same-sex couples to marry to the rise of Adolph Hitler and Nazi Germany.

This insanity needs to stop. Prop 8 needs to be defeated. It's wrong. It's unfair. The people supporting it are fanatical, intolerant and willing to do and say anything to eliminate our rights. Period.

We cannot let them succeed.

Tony Perkins, national crusader in the effort to eliminate the right to marry, has said the battle to pass Prop 8 is more important than the presidential election. The result is that they have raised $4.5 million in the last two days and purchased another $2 million in advertising.

That's how critical this fight is to the other side. That's how much they care.

I believe you care more.
Call, write and talk to your friends and family. It's vital you ask them to donate today!
We cannot allow this cyber attack to prevent us from having the resources necessary to get our message on the air -- especially when the other side is buying $2 million in ads a day."

http://www.noonprop8.com

[thousandoaksguy]

Great article Mikko!

Just to clear a few of the comments up... Dear "faithandvalues"; regardless of the outcome of Prop 8 our schools will continue to provide diversity education which has nothing to do with marriage or sex. Programs like these are necessary even if the parents feel that tolerance is unacceptable. If you question why we need these programs in our schools, please ask Lawrence King's mother. He was murdered in class at the age of 15 in Oxnard, CA this year for being gay. Murdered. In class.

Intolerance has no place in our schools and it has no place in our Constitution, please vote No On Prop 8. www.noonprop8.com

[RhiannonMR]

As someone who benefited under Loving, yes I had an interracial marriage, part of me thinks that gay marriage will end up in the Supreme Court much like Loving did. I HOPE if that happens we have an activist Court that decides in favor irregardless of the majority opinion. One very GOOD reason to vote Obama is the Court. The liberal judges are aging out and we cannot afford a conservative majority. I hope prop 8 fails. I grew up in CA but no longer live there. I have sent money to the no on 8 campaign. I would like something sane to happen. I really am angered that the Mormon church has pumped so much $$ in the other side of it. Marriage is sacred to those who are in it. I have seen some really sacred partnerships of gay folk, I'd like to see them get the rights and benefits that come with marriage in my life time.

[ShenaniganC]

Great article, Mikko. When you lay it out the way you did, it makes it obvious that anyone who cares about keeping their own personal rights should vote no on prop 8. Even straight, white, religious folks. After all, religion was something man made to understand God. Love was somethng God made for us. Why would we let something man made stand in the way of something God made?

[JohnBisceglia]

Would someone please tell me why I cannot marry Bob?

Bob served his country as a Lieutenant Commander in the U.S. Navy for 20 years, yet he cannot have the FREEDOM to marry the man he loves.....(uh, that would be me).

I find this despicable, and not in the cute way we think of when Daffy Duck says it. It is despicable in how our government can treat Bob's family as if it does not count. As if HE does not count. I'll spare everyone my protest line......it should be obvious what I think of my country's laws.

[Roryfreedman]

It will be my honor and privilege to vote NO on Prop. 8 this election day.

I understand what a divisive issue this can be for some people. But I urge Prop. 8 supporters to look deep within and seek to understand what you think you'd be losing by allowing same-sex partners to have legal marriages. Without allowing the knee-jerk reactions of, "it's wrong," or "the Bible says," or "I don't want my kids learning...", really ask yourself, "Why is this so bad?" If you can push past your auto-pilot, you may be surprised.

I cannot begin to imagine how I would feel if millions of people were raising millions of dollars to stop me from having a legal marriage with someone I loved. My heart breaks for my gay friends, and the millions of gay people all over the world, who are being so hurtfully and openly discriminated against. But I feel even sorrier for the supporters of Prop. 8. We live in a world where people can seem so different; but we all want the same thing---love. If you cannot see this as clearly as the nose on your face...if you are not moved to help people who, as a group, have been subjected to hate and violence and prejudice...if you cannot see the hate in Prop. 8...I will pray for you. I will pray for you to see that God is wherever love is.

[GirlieGirlArmy]

Hey Right Wing Jerks, I'm a woman in a hetero relationship. And I'm shocked and SHAMED that anyone would vote against 2 human beings in love having the RIGHT to wed. You don't want to get gay-married? Then DON'T, but don't stop my amazing committed friends from being together in the eyes of the law. While you marry your 12th wife, some of my Gay friends have been together 20 years. Thank GOD for people like Mikko, for truth spilling all over the place.

[CoraOlson]

What a brilliant piece.

Prop 8 is a disgrace to California.

VOTE NO ON 8!

[JenDubin]

Thanks for this piece. Love should not be legislated. DOWN with Prop 8!!

[angry_expat]

This is a very thoughtful article that should be read by as many US citizens as possible.

My parents are of different ethnic backgrounds and lived through incredible, harrowing times - Washington DC in the 1960s. They experienced things that seem impossible to those of us born into the relatively peaceful era of the late 20th century. It is our duty to tell these stories and to keep our delicate freedoms in perspective.

I can never forget that my liberty is in constant danger from certain groups in this country - and I don't intend to let anyone else forget it either!

[LeeWind]

Nicely put, Mikko!
I think the capper is the ad I see on my computer screen at the bottom of your article, which is for an interracial dating service! Our culture has accepted interracial marriage (though a majority of American voters didn't "approve" of interracial marriage until 1991.) How scary to think what if interracial marriage needed a majority approval vote back in 1967 - it wouldn't have made it. I hope we have better fortune on Nov 4th!
Best,
Lee

[suziq]

Anyone who claims to follow the Ten Commandments will vote NO ON 8!!!!! It's as simple as that - or are y'all religious hypocrits?

[EmInNorcal]

NO ON Prop 8!!! A constitutional amendment to take away people's rights is unconscionable.