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Black people, better than most, should understand the importance of being able to choose who to love and who to marry.
"As to mixed marriages, the most delicate question of all, it is to be noted that 29 states - all those of the South and many in the Southwest - forbid it. In the North, such marriages are frowned upon, and represent an almost insignificant percent."
--The American Negroes, special bulletin published by the U.S. Information Agency, an adjunct of the State Department, 1957
So, you wanna get married?
After years of playing (or getting played by) the field, you've found that special someone you consider irreplaceable. You agree to be together happily ever after, or for as long as you can stand each other. You tell family, friends, perhaps even former significant others. But don't forget the most important phone call of all: to your state or local government.
Five decades ago, if you and your spouse-to-be were of different races, most state governments not only would have nixed the proposed marriage, but your marriage would have been voided, your children by any previous marriage taken from you by the state, and you could have been fined and/or imprisoned for up to 10 years. Many of us (rightly) recall the case of Richard and Mildred Loving, the interracial couple who took their case to the U.S. Supreme Court and got laws against interracial marriage banned. The 41stanniversary of the June 12 Supreme Court ruling will be especially poignant this year after the recent passing of Mrs. Loving.
But it obviously wasn't just the Lovings who had to fight for the right to choose a spouse without government interference. A year after the marriage police in Virginia arrested the Lovings, Stetson Kennedy published the satirical book Jim Crow Guide. In chapter five, "Who May Marry Whom," he discussed the many ways that interracial marriage was limited by government.
In 1949, Clark Hamilton was a 20-year-old black veteran sentenced to serve three years in the Virginia penitentiary for marrying Florence Hammond, a white woman. As Kennedy wrote: "The couple had moved to Maryland, and his sentence was suspended after he pleaded guilty. But while awaiting trial he served 82 days in a Virginia jail, and his marriage was declared void."
There was the case of David Knight, a 23-year-old white Navy veteran who in 1940 was sentenced to five years in the Mississippi penitentiary for marrying Junie Scradney, a white woman, after it was revealed in testimony that he was the great-grandson of a black woman. In 1953, Judge Wakefield Taylor of Oakland, Calif., took away the two young children of Barbara Smith Taylor after she divorced her husband and married a black man.
Given this history, it might be reasonable to conclude that black people in particular would be opposed to laws limiting marital choices among adults. Unfortunately, there are many black people who are not only critical of interracial marriage, but also support banning gay or same-sex marriage today. According to a Pew Research Poll taken after the Massachusetts Supreme Court upheld same-sex marriage, far more blacks than whites disagreed with the court's decision. And that doesn't even include what is said at black barbershops.
As columnist Earl Ofari Hutchinson notes, many blacks "seethe" at the comparison. As the argument goes, interracial marriage should not be compared to gay marriage because of the oppression blacks have suffered. Hutchinson dismisses that as being "self-serving." It is also myopic, a case of a former slave putting on his former master's clothing and wanting others to be treated as slaves.
The way to view this issue is to understand that government prohibition against marriages between consenting adults is a form of government oppression and a denial of individual liberty. In 1948, when the Supreme Court of California became the first state to strike down a ban on interracial marriage, Justice Roger Traynor wrote on behalf of individual liberty: "A member of any of these races may find himself barred by law from marrying the person of his choice and that person to him may be irreplaceable." [Emphasis added]
If you do find that someone special whom you consider irreplaceable, why would you want or need the government to give you permission to marry? At most, government should, in this case, fulfill the role of a clerk who takes down your basic information and files it away. For citizens making marital plans, we should give the government the equivalent of name, rank and serial number.
My former Cato Institute colleague David Boaz suggests that privatization is a "simple solution" to the battle over marriage in its various forms. "Make it a private contract between two individuals. Marriage contracts could be as individually tailored as other contracts are in our diverse capitalist world. This would "allow gay people to marry the way other people do: individually, privately, contractually, with whatever ceremony they might choose in the presence of family, friends or God."
When it comes to our voluntary, consensual associations with other adults, we may need to give the government notification, but that should not be confused with seeking permission. If there was ever an issue in which government and other third parties should butt out, it is the choice of a spouse. My conservative friends who say "you can't legislate morality" nevertheless want to do so when it comes to gay marriage.
Gay people are now fighting for the right to marry the person they choose, someone they consider irreplaceable. I hope they get what they want. I would also advise that they try to find a client with a surname like Liberty or Freedom to be a plaintiff. It worked out for the Lovings.
Casey Lartigue is a former policy analyst with Cato's Center for Educational Freedom
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I hope they get what they want. I would also advise that they try to find a client with a surname like Liberty or Freedom to be a plaintiff. It worked out for the Lovings. online games
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There is a silent campaign raising its ugly head again, to force guilt upon African Americans for not supporting the gay rights movement. Recently on a news paper headline article African American preachers were photographed at some conference and were called out as being reluctant to support African Americans who are gay. As if it is suddenly reprehensible to do so. That African American clergy need to catch up with the progressive movement. That gays have right that should be recognized by all, despite God's expressed will, as the clergy have always known it. As if God is a myth and African Americans should re-write the bible! Well it must be understood that belief in God is not a fruitless exercise for many African Americans and it is this faith that have sustained them through centries of racism. They are not going to abandon their faith at the intimidation of a powerful white male block. Because this block will and have never been there to comfort them long after the party's been over. In fact it is those resembling this group that have been the most effective in blocking the African American struggle for progress. The black gay voices who are also joining with them should take a hard look at the people they are about to form a coalition with. If you can truly regard them as family, then go ahead. Family above those in your own community, even those who may raise a brow of disdain toward you.
Th old chant is being renewed despite African Americans continued and sustained protest that the civil rights movement and the gay rights movement cannot be shelved in the same category. And that they are absolutely not making any compromises as such. To repeat the long standing and valid reasons why: That african americans have long wanted a quick solution and relief from the onslaught of racism, yet they could find no remedy save bleaching their skins, straightening their hair with lye, and surgically changing their features, their cultural expressions, addresses, etc, etc, etc. A gay individual quick fix is only to conceal his sexuality. Is there any comparison here? African American is a race of people, Being gay is an expression of choice still not proven to be written in the DNA. And whether one wants to argue the matter or not, the fact is, he indeed can conceal that expression. But to infruriate blacks they repeat the "We shall overcome.." at their ralleys. To take it further, even if the gay black men and women hide their sexuality, there's still racism to confront.
The black clergy and community at large feels insulted and diminshed when they are dictated by these movements to join them in their demands. Their struggle for sexual expression. An expression overtly and expressely condemned by the bible the clergy have sworn upon.
So not only are african americans insulted once, by being regarded in the same category as lawbreakers of the God they vow to serve, but, they are being chastised for their lack of support of this movement.
"Many of us do not feel comfortable with the behaviour of our white counterparts in the expression of their sexuality. White privellege allows you to do a lot of things that I can't as a black man, gay or straight." This statement quoted by the writer of the foregoing article sums up the entire matter for any doubtful black person. If gays should receive the rights they are seeking for, nothing changes for the black gay individual in his struggle for complete recognition of his rights in jobs, housing, and education. The overwhelming populace of the gay movement are white males, and their pursuits of all the above remain intact. And if a survey is taken you can count on one hand how many of them are concerned with african american rights. Among them are men who are white color workers in highly influential positions. and mete out their brand of biased policies to blacks they encounter each day, and it never crosses their mind, that they have anything in common. Yet in their strategy to get support for their cause they are underwriting a powerful campaign to enlist blacks, by the sheer force of their powerful position in media.
Here is a case in point of how white homosexual males can impact your lives without you even knowing. It illustrate my point so perfectly, it reads as if I made it up myself.
Have you ever heard about a man called Russell Harding. President of HUD in New York City? Son of a a liberal party boss. But he registered as a republican as soon as he was of age. Well he was in his position to help lower income people; Which we know in New York is almost synonomous with blacks. So he's having an online chat with a boyfriend in 2002. (Read full story in the Village Voice may 21st, 2002)And in response to some issues this is what he says about black students crowding into Minneapolis for a conference "It's like that thing they have in Atlanta...All damn black frats or something who shouldn't be allowed in school period just running around acting like stupid monkeys they are.....Yup, black college monkeys acting their true selves then." (I guess he was jealous that they actually went to college because his college credentials turned out to be lies to land that big job. See white privellege at work again, something gay blacks can never have) About Bush choosing Powell: "I think it was a horrible choice that he will come to regret soon.. he's black and will throw around that black 'tude all of them have...and be a big black $%#& in the long run if you ask me... Yup and I'l be right...he's black and trash."
But the most telling of all his statements is this in regard to a heavy snowfall in New York, and regarding the residents he is positioned in his highfaluting job to help: "..Manhattan is always clear...the other boroughs take a little longer...but then all that live in those areas are low class white trash or blacks...so no need to make things easy for them."
(Well of course he went on to loose his job once exposed, and jailed for embezzlement, claiming a mental disease.) You think a coalition with blacks was on his mind ever. He would be repulsed by the idea. Unless he wanted to get married to a man. Unless he thought recruiting your help would serve him.
Well there is planty of him to go around even still. I hope black folks aren't being snookered into being helpers in the game of the powerfully wealthy white male. They only need us when we COUNT most.
This viewpoint is thoughtfully and truthfully written and I wish it would be more widely read and commented on.
I'm straight and christian, middle aged and long married with children. I know a lot of black folks who have very biased opinions about gay people and those biased opinions are supported by many of our clergy people and community leaders. The bias troubles me a great deal because I am sure that so many of us are forgetting our own history or choosing to see the bigotry that we have endured as exceptional and therefore completely separate from the bigotry that other people have endured. How can we forget that many white people of all walks of life had what they thought were excellent reasons to deny equal rights to black people? How can we allow ourselves to talk the same kind of talk that they did?
The truth is that we don't have to like, or understand people who are different from ourselves. However, we do have to support their right under the constitution to be treated with equality and fairness. Period.