We Should Adopt The Language Of "Apartheid" For Gay Marriage Debate

[ruggerson]

Our "leaders" (of course we don't have any effective leaders, but that's another thread)should never dicuss the issue of gay marriage without drawing a reference to Jim Crow and to apartheid.

The radical, religious right uses the language of "saving marriage."

We need to adopt the language of apartheid.

We should hit them where it hurts, especially since many of our opponents have southern roots.

Call these constitutional amendments to "ban" same marriage by their proper description:

A bold attempt to reestablish Jim Crow laws in state constitutions.

[Lex]

1. "second class citizens"

is what they try to make GLBT persons, even though we pay taxes, work, raise families, and take on all the responsibilities of contributing members of society.

All the responsibilites but are cheated on the perks.

2nd class citizenship.

[ruggerson]

2. It's good but it doesn't have the emotional punch "Jim Crow" does

The whole point of using language is to box people into corners.

We want to box the bigots into a corner where the average person understands that they are.... BIGOTS.

[Lex]

3. I'm not entirely sure the Average Joe understands exactly

what the term "Jim Crow" is all about.

Maybe so, but I wonder . . .

[TechBear_Seattle]

4. Why not the language of the US Supreme Court?

From LOVING v. VIRGINIA, 388 U.S. 1 (1967), decided June 12, 1967. The case involved two Virginia residents, Mildred Jeter and Richard Loving, who were married in the District of Columbia in June of 1958. At that time, Virginia law prohibited a black person (such as Jeter) from marrying a white person (such as Loving.) Further, the law made it a felony for Virginia residents to leave the state to enter in to an "illegal" marriage, which the Commonwealth decided is exactly what Jeter and Loving had done. After pleading guilty to felony charges, the couple were given a suspended sentence on the condition that they leave the commonwealth and not return for 25 years. Some years latter, the couple appealed the Virginia decision to the federal courts on constitutional grounds. A federal district court upheld the Virginia antimiscegenation laws and thus upheld the felony convictions of the Lovings. The United States Supreme Court latter overturned the state and district courts, using very harsh language. The conclusion of the ruling is given below.

There can be no question but that Virginia's miscegenation statutes rest solely upon distinctions drawn according to race. The statutes proscribe generally accepted conduct if engaged in by members of different races. Over the years, this Court has consistently repudiated "distinctions between citizens solely because of their ancestry" as being "odious to a free people whose institutions are founded upon the doctrine of equality." Hirabayashi v. United States, 320 U.S. 81, 100 (1943). At the very least, the Equal Protection Clause demands that racial classifications, especially suspect in criminal statutes, be subjected to the "most rigid scrutiny," Korematsu v. United States, 323 U.S. 214, 216 (1944), and, if they are ever to be upheld, they must be shown to be necessary to the accomplishment of some permissible state objective, independent of the racial discrimination which it was the object of the Fourteenth Amendment to eliminate. Indeed, two members of this Court have already stated that they "cannot conceive of a valid legislative purpose . . . which makes the color of a person's skin the test of whether his conduct is a criminal offense." McLaughlin v. Florida, supra, at 198 (STEWART, J., joined by DOUGLAS, J., concurring).

There is patently no legitimate overriding purpose independent of invidious racial discrimination which justifies this classification. The fact that Virginia prohibits only interracial marriages involving white persons demonstrates that the racial classifications must stand on their own justification, as measures designed to maintain White Supremacy. We have consistently denied (388 U.S. 1, 12) the constitutionality of measures which restrict the rights of citizens on account of race. There can be no doubt that restricting the freedom to marry solely because of racial classifications violates the central meaning of the Equal Protection Clause.

II.

These statutes also deprive the Lovings of liberty without due process of law in violation of the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. The freedom to marry has long been recognized as one of the vital personal rights essential to the orderly pursuit of happiness by free men.

Marriage is one of the "basic civil rights of man," fundamental to our very existence and survival. Skinner v. Oklahoma, 316 U.S. 535, 541 (1942). See also Maynard v. Hill, 125 U.S. 190 (1888). To deny this fundamental freedom on so unsupportable a basis as the racial classifications embodied in these statutes, classifications so directly subversive of the principle of equality at the heart of the Fourteenth Amendment, is surely to deprive all the State's citizens of liberty without due process of law. The Fourteenth Amendment requires that the freedom of choice to marry not be restricted by invidious racial discriminations. 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.

These convictions must be reversed.

It is so ordered.

As an excercise, replace references to race with appropriate references to sexual orientation.

[kevinbgoode]

5. We need to call these people who they are. . .

Hetero-supremacists.

They hate that term.