What Will Our Children Think

In 1967, interracial marriage was prohibited in sixteen states and polls showed that as many as 72% of the American public opposed legalizing interracial marriage. During that year, the Supreme Court ignored that public sentiment in the case Loving v. Virginia, ruling that under our Constitution, “the freedom to marry, or not marry, a person of another race resides with the individual and cannot be infringed by the state.”

We are only one generation removed from that era, but to a child of the 1980s, raised after the opening of society to women and members of different races, the ban on interracial marriage seems almost medieval. I cannot conceive people being denied marriage licenses based upon the color of their chosen mate’s skin and I think the fact that such a ban is mind-boggling to me represents progress.

I wonder what my children will think a generation from now when I have to explain the presence on tomorrow’s ballot of a constitutional amendment banning marriage of homosexuals.

I’m willing to concede that same sex marriage and interracial marriage do not raise precisely the same set of issues. Yet, the opposition to each is remarkably similar and I suspect that just as the opposition to interracial marriage has disappeared as society has become more accepting, so will the current hostility toward same sex relationships eventually subside.

The trial court that initially convicted the interracial couple of violating Virginia’s interracial marriage ban cloaked its decision in religious references, declaring that “but for the interference with [Gd’s] arrangement, there would be no cause for [interracial] marriages.” The sentiment was that interracial marriage was a sin that could create a “mongrel breed of citizens” and would deny Virginia the ability “to preserve the racial integrity of its citizens.” Yet, this visceral opposition has slowly faded away.

Opposition to same sex marriage is similarly based largely on religion as opponents seek to impose religious norms onto civil relationships. What gay individuals seek, however, is not permission from these religions to participate in relationships – after all, they are well aware of those religions that condemn homosexuality. Instead, gay individuals seek a recognition by the government of the same rights and privileges afforded to others living in loving, committed relationships and a recognition by society that they are just as worthy of marriage as any other person.

The ballot initiative here in Tennessee, like others throughout the country, seeks to prevent these relationships from receiving equal recognition by enshrining a gay marriage ban into the state constitution. The effort is not only duplicative – state statutes already ban gay marriage – but is also an attempt to deny one class of citizens the rights and benefits enjoyed by all other citizens based solely on sexual orientation. That, my friends, is discrimination and a tarnishing of our constitution.

However, just as interracial marriage has slowly become acceptable, so to will same sex marriage it seems. According to multiple polls, significant majorities of 18-29 year-olds favor some sort of recognition of equal rights for gay couples. Going even younger, three quarters of high school seniors favor legal recognition of same sex relationships.

With numbers like these, I suspect that my children – or at least my grandchildren – will look back at this era of constitutional amendments to ban same sex marriage as outdated and closed minded, which is exactly what it is.