Here is a group I wish Rep. Chuck DeVore would invest some time in learning more about. But I fear Chuck has already made up his mind on this issue.ÂÂ
Today marks the 40th anniversary of the Supreme Court’s “Loving” decision that lifted the ban on Interracial Marriage nationally. The rationale behind banning interracial marriage was that whites were superior racially and intermarriages would diminish the white race.  Read about there case here.
To commemorate the Loving case, Freedom to Marry has developed a number of Print PSAs which feature prominent Republicans who have intermarried (Jeb Bush, William Cohen) and even people like Tiger Woods. For more on the organization and to see the ads go here.
Freedom to Marry is the gay and non-gay partnership working to win marriage equality nationwide. Headed by Evan Wolfson, one of America’s leading civil rights advocates and lawyers, Freedom to Marry brings new resources and a renewed context of urgency and opportunity to this social justice movement. Freedom to Marry brings the work of its partner organizations into a larger whole, a shared civil rights campaign that fosters heightened outreach to non-gay allies.
Freedom to Marry encourages dialogue with Americans thinking through the need to end discrimination in marriage, provides support to targeted state and local efforts, and promotes fairness for all families, including same-sex couples and the children raised by gay parents. By working to secure equal access to civil marriage licenses from the government, we help reinforce our country’s historic commitment to freedom, the pursuit of happiness, and equal justice for all.
A wide array of legal and civil rights groups have combined efforts to celebrate the Loving 40th Anniversary:
- as a milestone in the fight against racial inequality,
- for its importance in securing the freedom to marry as a civil right,
- for its embodiment of the importance of social justice activism and independent courts, and
- for its relevance to today’s ongoing battles against unfair exclusion from marriage.
The celebration will consist of a series of five ads in Roll Call and The Politico starting on June 4th and running through the Anniversary on June 12th. Also, the organizations will hold a press conference and a reception on Capitol Hill to mark the decision’s precise anniversary on June 12th.
(note to readers: apologies for the typos; my keyboard is acting up. I have cleaned up the text – Dan)
Dan, re: “Here is a group I wish Rep. Chuck DeVore would invest some time in learning more about. But I fear Chuck has already made up his mind on this issue.†It is sloppy logic to conflate the two issues: Interracial marriage and same sex marriage.
If the proposition that “All men are created equal…†began to be conclusively settled by the Civil War and the 13th, 14th and 15th Amendments, then the ending of the ban on Interracial marriage was an extension along those lines. All people are created equal. Each person should have the opportunity to marry one other person of the opposite sex (subject to issues regarding age of consent and incest). Bans on interracial marriages violate this basic, fundamental premise.
As to conflating interracial marriage with same sex marriage, this is one area where the African American community takes particular umbrage. Many in the African American community do not take kindly to equating their struggle for civil rights with the effort by many on the social issue left to overturn the definition of marriage. Perhaps that is why of the five Democrats in the Assembly who did not support Assemblyman Leno’s AB 43 Gender Neutral Marriage bill, two of them were African American (of seven) and two were Latino.
All the best,
Chuck DeVore
State Assemblyman, 70th District
Chuck, please explain how bans on same-gender marriages do not violate this same basic, fundamental right.
Chuck —
Thanks for People’s Exhibit A; you didn’t check out the group and what they were for. And you already went back to your talking points wihtout considering what the organization was about and how the Loving case applies to the argument for Gay marriage.
The Loving case represents a clear example of how government **changed** the definition of traditional marriage. Like it or not, interracial marriage was banned in this country at one time.
As to your argument on how children ar best raised in a house with a mother and a father, I offer this study: http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/cgi/content/full/118/1/349 It refutes many of the things you have published in this area before.
Since neither you nor I are African American, I found your example of two of seven democrats against Leno’s bill being black as a rationale for the entire black community being against Gay marriage laughable. Have a great day.
Dan, I love it. You take my, “Many in the African American community do not take kindly to equating their struggle for civil rights with the effort by many on the social issue left to overturn the definition of marriage…” and write, “I found your example of two of seven democrats against Leno’s bill being black as a rationale for the entire black community being against Gay marriage laughable.” You thus transmutate my “many” to all and then call it “laughable.” Neat trick!
Obviously you have not read polls showing that the most consistent opposition to same sex marriage among Americans comes from the African-American community. Now, why do you suppose that is?
All the best,
Chuck DeVore
State Assemblyman, 70th District
Chuck please explain to these libs the difference between interracial marriage and gay marriage.
Please explain to them that gays are not asking for equal right but instead for NEW rights to be created for them.
Nesta and Mr. DeVore:
No matter what you two argue the fact is that one day millenials (born 1979 and 1994) will dominate the electorate. That is bad news for you two because this generation is more supportive of gay rights than any other generation! Don’t take my crazy liberal word for it, it’s been polled! The Sacramento Bee wrote about this generation (TODAY): “… they are far more supportive of gay marriage, gay adoption, and gays’ being allowed to serve openly in the military than any other age group”
OUCH!
As I am sure you have seen Mr. Devore, the votes that have been taken in the Assembly have become more and more in favor of gay marriage. That is not a bi-product of term limits, money, trial lawyers, unions or any other liberal boogie people you can blame. This is because California, nah, America is becoming more accepting of gay rights.
To sum, the clock is ticking before we see marriage equality. We will see it in our lifetime. And when it does pass my generation will be better for it.
Chuck, I am begging you! Please hire a press secretary. This shameless self-promotion makes you look ridiculous.
As for the “Loving Case.” Let’s go back to the original judge in the case that upheld the decision to ban inter-racial marriage. The judge stated that God created the different continents where people of different races and ethnicities inhabited and thus the “black, white, yellow, red, etc. were not meant to inter-mingle. Sucks to be you since we live in a multi-cultural society.
Being gay is not a choice. I wish I had a buck for every one of my gay friends that said they wished people like you would stop discriminating against them just because they are different. Gay people are not asking for special rights. They are asking for equal rights. Thankfully you will be termed out soon and hopefully you will go away. I am so tired of you representating only those who agree with you rather being open-minded and tolerant of everyone. You are not the Lord Almighty. Stop judging others.
Chuck — Most of the African Americans I know, including neighbors on my street and at my school, still struggle with racism against them here in Orange County.
Those who attend church regularly are more inclined not to support gay marriage and those who identify themselves as black protestants have a high rate of church attendance. But it is still not as high as white envagenicals. Pew has a recent survey (2006). But aren’t you the one always touting Abraham Lincoln’s committment to doing the right thing in managing an unpopular war? I don’t expect the church to support gay marriage, but I do believe the time will come when the courts will find no legal reasons why gays cannot marry.
But before you go off on a tangent about parents marrying children, back to my original point. It’d be great for you to open your mind to the efforts of the “Freedom to Marry” Group; I didn’t notice any links to tips on parent/child marriages as a means to save money on estate taxes. And the point behind the Loving case was the courts changing the definition of marriage. If you don’t want to read the case files, there was a TV movie about the Loving case you can have a staffer track down for you.
Chuck,
Am I to understand from your comment that you believe public opinion should be a guiding principle regarding civil rights?
If so, I direct you to this from 10 years ago in the National Review…
You also ignore the fact that a broad coalition of civil rights organizations and leaders support the Religious Freedom and Civil Marriage Protection Act, AB43, including the California State Conference of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), United Farm Workers (UFW), Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Chinese for Affirmative Action, Anti-Defamation League, California National Organization for Women (NOW), and the California Council of Churches, among many others.
If the signers of the Declaration of Independence had relied on opinion polls to guide their actions, we would still be a colony of the British Empire. The same arguments used against marriage equality for gays and lesbians, were used in 1967.
The trail judge in the Loving Case ruled; “Almighty God created the races white, black, yellow, Malay and red, and he placed them on separate continents. And but for the interference with his arrangement there would be no cause for such marriages. The fact that he separated the races shows that he did not intend for the races to mix.”
In 1948, the Supreme Court of California took a giant step toward ending the regime of miscegenation law when it broke an sixty-five year string of post-Reconstruction judicial precedents and declared California’s miscegenation law unconstitutional. Speaking for a deeply divided court, Justice Roger Traynor flatly rejected the shopworn claim that miscegenation laws applied “equally” to all races. “A member of any of these races,” Traynor explained, “may find himself barred by law from marrying the person of his choice and that person to him may be irreplaceable.” “Human beings,” he continued, “are bereft of worth and dignity by a doctrine that would make them as interchangeable as trains.” “The right to marry,” Traynor insisted, “is the right of individuals, not of racial groups.”
To argue that since homosexuals are free to marry someone of an opposite gender they are not being discriminated against is equally as absurd as the arguments Traynor rejected in his opinion. Laws prohibiting same-gender marriage have the effect of causing individuals to be barred by law from marrying the person of his or her choice. Such laws are, by their very nature, unequal. The premise that same-gender marriage will somehow result polygamy, in parents marrying their children, or the destruction of marriage as an institution, thus threatening the very moral fiber of our country is equally absurd.
The U.S. Supreme Court in 1967 declared that:
I can hardly see how this does not, and/or should not, apply to same-gender couples. Further, I believe, based upon the above precidents in case law, that the struggle for marriage equality for same-gender couples has far more in common with the struggle to end miscegenation laws than not.
I wonder how many of the Reeps in Congress who oppose gay marriage are themselves divorced…often more than once? What a joke.
This is indeed a social injustice. It is a national travesty.
Chuck is a self-righteous guy who thinks he as all the knowledge in the world. He is of the mindset that if one minority opposes an issue, clearly it is not Civil Rights. I wish he would go on the Colbert Report, he would have a field day there. Of course we would then get another OC Blog post of Chuck linking the data whining “Look at me look at me everyone I am on TV, I am important, I am relevant.”
Anyways, to my main point. Chuck, a while back I brought up a special on the History Channel regarding the fight to end bans on inter-racial marriage. I cited an opponent making the very same claims of the consequences of allowing Blacks and Whites to marry that you make as to why gays and lesbians cannot be marry. Please answer what the difference is instead of trying to use your pathetic talking points. ANSWER THE QUESTION MR. DEVORE, NOW!
From a recent GOP debate story on AP:
Cynthia Fish, a lesbian mother of a 6- and 8-year-old, asked Romney to “explain to me more, why if we are sending our troops over to fight for liberty and justice for all throughout this country, why not for me? Why not for my family?”
(yeah Chuck, why not for her? Why not for her family?)
According to the Associated Press, “Romney paused, asked Fish about her children and then praised her.
“Wonderful,” Romney said. “I’m delighted that you have a family and you’re happy with your family. That’s the American way. … People can live their lives as they choose and children can be a great source of joy, as you know. And I welcome that.” He then stated his belief that “Marriage is an institution which is designed to bring a man and woman together to raise a child and that the ideal setting for society at large is where there is a male and a female are associated with the development and nurturing a child.”
“There are other ways to raise kids, that’s fine,” Romney continued. “Single moms, grandparents raising kids, gay couples raising kids. That’s the American way, to have people have their freedom of choice.”