An unsigned editorial in The Salem News argues that the principle of federalism is not a good reason to oppose a constitutional amendment banning interracial marriage:
Federalism was meant to give states some leeway for social experimentation without forcing others to follow along... But the mobility of American society creates legitimate national interest in a uniform approach to the interracial marriage question. Couples move from state to state every day in pursuit of educational, career or other personal goals. Thus Congress, and the nation, needs to consistently define what constitutes “marriage.”
While the federal Defense of Marriage Act currently lets states refuse to recognize interracial marriages from other jurisdictions, opponents fear it will be struck down by liberal judges as discriminatory, forcing states to recognize interracial marriages. ... While we believe interracial couples should have legal protections such as the right to visit a sick companion, make decisions for him or her, and inherit property, these are the kinds of rights other laws can assure.
Oh, wait, I seem to have gotten people’s bigotries mixed up. The editorial isn’t defending a constitutional ban on interracial marriages, it’s defending a constitutional ban on gay marriages. Here’s the correct text:
Federalism was meant to give states some leeway for social experimentation without forcing others to follow along... But the mobility of American society creates legitimate national interest in a uniform approach to the gay marriage question. Couples move from state to state every day in pursuit of educational, career or other personal goals. Thus Congress, and the nation, needs to consistently define what constitutes "marriage."
While the federal Defense of Marriage Act currently lets states refuse to recognize gay marriages from other jurisdictions, opponents fear it will be struck down by liberal judges as discriminatory, forcing states to recognize same-sex marriages. ... While we believe same-sex couples should have legal protections such as the right to visit a sick companion, make decisions for him or her, and inherit property, these are the kinds of rights other laws can assure.
Strange, but it’s hard to see any significant difference between the two versions of this text. Both look pretty much the same, but whereas most people will immediately recognize the bigotry in saying that interracial couples deserve “legal protections,” they don’t deserve to be married, it’s much harder for many to see the bigotry in saying the exact same thing about gay couples. Many people today consider it self-evident that gay couples don’t deserve to be married; it wasn’t very long ago, though, that many people felt the same way about interracial couples.
This editorial is, in fact, every bit as bigoted as one inveighing against interracial marriage. I doubt that they authors are racists who oppose interracial marriage, but they are no better from a moral or social standpoint than such racists would be.
Even if we ignore that, however, the editorial is filled with falsehoods and nonsense:
The lengthy constitutional amendment process provides a proper mechanism for this.
The author seems to want to suggest that the process of amending the constitution takes long enough to produce a healthy debate about the merits of the issue, but that isn’t always the case. An amendment could in theory take centuries to pass, but that isn’t the case with them all. The 26th amendment, which guarantees the right to vote to 18-year-olds, took just 100 days to be ratified by the states. Does the author of the above really think that this qualifies as a “lengthy” process? I frankly doubt that they care — they just want gay marriage banned and are uninterested in any national debates over the matter.
Marriage — the union between a man and a woman — is as old as humanity, and its definition should not be changed by the whim of a court.
I hate it when people pretend that the nature of marriage hasn’t changed from one era to the next, or isn’t different from one culture to the next. The author either hasn’t done any serious research on marriage, or they have and are simply lying to the readers. A little over a century ago a presumed marriage could be invalidated because the union did not possess such “essential” characteristics as the woman taking the man’s last name, life-long commitment, a wife’s obedience to the husband, the husband’s absolute control over all property, the right of the husband to force sexual intercourse on an unwilling wife (that would be rape, by the way), and the right of the husband to control and have custody of any children.
In a democracy it’s the voters who should make that decision. An amendment to the federal constitution permits the people to decide from sea to shining sea.
Even worse than people who distort history for the sake of their personal bigotries are those who wrap their bigotries in the cloak of patriotism. People do make the decisions in a democracy, but they are also supposed to be prevented from making decision to deny basic rights to some citizens on account of prejudice and bigotry. It’s not a true democracy when some of the demos are made second-class citizens, but that’s precisely what the author of the above piece is seeking to do. This argument could be made equally as well on behalf of banning interracial marriage — or even legalizing slavery again.
Gay Rights & Gay Marriage:
- Marriage: Religious Rite or Civil Right?
- Gay Rights & Marriage News
- Gay Rights Polls
- Books On Gays, Homosexuality
- Gay Rights & Marriage Timeline
- Evangelical Christianity & Homosexuality
- Catholicism & Homosexuality
Arguments Against Gay Marriage: