Dafydd's analysis of the use of Loving v Virginia for neutering marriage is something to read. It falls nicely with the wealth of analysis we've provided over the years here at Opine under the "Loving v Virginia" tag. I quote only part of it to give our readership a taste of the whole thing...
I fully support the Court's decision in Loving v. Virginia: Given the clear meaning of the words of the Civil Rights Amendments and their obvious application to racial equality, the Court made the right decision. But I utterly reject its application to SSM.
Is this inconsistent or irrational? Not in the least: There is a bright line between the two that should be obvious, even to the activists themselves.
There is no possible compelling interest in preventing mixed-race marriages other than perpetuating "racial purity" and ultimately "racial supremacism." Yet there is no significant biological difference between the "races," and it's frequently hard even to distinguish between them.
A quick google search shows that while there is as much as 8% genetic differences between two individuals of different races, there is only a 2% difference between two individuals of different sexes. Ergo, Loving v. Virginia still stands.
ReplyDeletePersonal Failure
ReplyDeleteConcerning the Loving analogy as you have employed it. I would draw your attention to the
argument that was forewarded by nothing less than the deep blue very liberal and very influential New York Supreme Court in it's recent decision
Hernadez v Robles.
"Thus, because Perez and Loving refused to allow the marriage institution to be appropriated for nonmarriage ends, to use those two cases to advance just such an appropriative project is to betray them. In other words, the Perez/Loving argument advances a superficial analogy that masks a deep disanalogy. That disanalogy is between the intention of Perez and Loving to protect marriage from appropriation for nonmarriage purposes and the intention of the present marriage project to make such an appropriation. Thus, those who deploy the Perez/Loving argument, whether advocates or judges, are misleading people, including perhaps themselves."
Hernandez, 805 N.Y.S.2d at 379–81, 381 n.3, 382
Here the court is saying that proponets of same-sex "marriage" are like the racists who crafted the anti-miscegenation laws that were the basis of Loving & Perez. Like the racists of old, same-sex "marriage" supporters are attempting to use the foundational constiutional right to marriage to advance gay identity politics. Just as the anti-miscegenationists were intrested more in promoting segregation than in the instiution of marriage, they sought to use marriage as a vehicle for that end. Likewise gay marriage supporters seek to use marriage law to advance their interersts to an end that is not marriage. Marriage is seen primarily as a vehicle to advance gay "rights" and concern for the foundational constitional; right of marriage as but so much grist for the mill.
Now that type of language used by a State Supreme Court is so powerfull and blunt that (If people knew anything of the law) Its very existance in such a prominent and indeed direct case on the merits for same-sex "marriage" would (or should) give even the most ardent same-sex "marriage" enthusiast real cause for concern. The fact is that it shows the ideological nature of such claims for re-difineing marriage.
In regards to racial make-up, I know the Skip Gates PBS's Faces of America did and excellent segment in the series in which the participants did a DNA test to find out their racial make-up. Every one of us takes pride in our ancestry, no one should feel ashamed of what they are made up of, and no one should be denied access both maternal and paternal lines of cultural heritage.
ReplyDeleteAs for PF, it's not as much as the difference of genetics but how those differences affect our judgment. There could be .001% difference between a man and a woman if they are siblings, but even a brother can get his sister pregnant.
Do we want to promote such behavior?
Renee "Quick google searches" are the hob-goblin of little minds.
ReplyDeleteIt should not surprise you that something as profound and obvious as entire reproductive organs are dismissed as irelavant in the minds of some.
The fact of the matter is that many ardent secularists cannot defend even elementary family formation. There worldview is that diminshed, ideologicaly driven, narrow, and "impervious to facts"
Fitz, Too bad Personal Failure didn't look up the difference between Y chromosomes and X chromosomes.
ReplyDeleteFailure: ...there is as much as 8% genetic differences between two individuals of different races...
ReplyDeleteThis is irrelevant, but it is also false. There is as much as 8% genetic differences between two individuals of the same "race," as well. The genetic differences between men and women are on top of these "genetic differences between two individuals" statistics, not in place of it.
This is all irrelevant since nobody measured "genetic differences" when rejecting the notion of "racial purity." In fact, the initial rejections of racism predate the notion of genes at all, let alone measurements of genetic variation.
If there is an analog in the marriage debate to the notion of "racial purity" it would be "gender purity," which doesn't really exist in this debate but if it did, it is more a feature of "same-sex marriage" argumentation than of marriage actually.