imagine it’s 1945…

…and you’re reading this press release. How would you respond?

Americans Overwhelmingly Oppose Mixed-Race ‘Marriage’

Those who oppose laws permitting mixed-race ‘marriage’ outnumber supporters by a two-to-one margin.

“We need to strengthen marriage.” According to the National Annenberg Election Survey, that sentiment, which was expressed at a rally last Sunday in Boston to support traditional marriage, is one held by an overwhelming majority of Americans.

Matt Daniels, president of the Alliance for Marriage, said the support for race-pure marriage knows no cultural or social boundaries, and includes African-Americans, Latinos, Asians, Jews, Evangelicals, Catholics and people of no particular faith.

“This is what the Vatican calls ‘the common currency of humanity,’ ” he said.

Daniels is pleased with the survey overall, despite what he says was a “deliberate bias” in the questioning that was designed to reflect poorly on traditional marriage.

“Whenever you ask people if they oppose something, you lower the numbers,” Daniels said. “If you ask them, ‘Do you support marriage as (being between) a man and a woman if the same race?’ you get much higher numbers.”

Support for traditional marriage was bolstered by those who are angered by recent court decisions, such as the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court’s order to give mixed-race couple access to the commonwealth’s marriage law, according to Glenn T. Stanton, senior analyst for marriage and sexuality at Focus on the Family.

“The tremendous judicial overreach that we’re seeing in . . . Massachusetts . . . is not driving it, but it’s helping it ó and its helping with the outrage.”

The numbers were released as lawmakers in Massachusetts prepare to debate the definition of marriage. In fact, the Massachusetts Legislature convened today to debate a state constitutional amendment that would define marriage as being between a man and a woman of the same race.

Ray McNulty, a spokesman for the Coalition for Marriage ó of which Focus on the Family is a part ó said the poll numbers will help the cause.

“We’ve circulated the Annenberg numbers to all the legislators here in the statehouse,” McNulty said. “They’re very powerful.”

The survey found that 60 percent oppose mixed-race marriage laws in their state. Meanwhile, 49 percent of Americans oppose the Federal Marriage Amendment, while 42 percent favor its passage.

Of course, it’s not 1945. It’s 2004, and this is what the press release actually looks like.

There’s a lot of talk about the “sanctity of marriage” these days. But can’t we question the validity of any argument that says that the value of a right is a function of who is excluded from exercising it? Again and again, I’ve heard conservative commentators argue that allowing same-sex marriages would weaken the “institution” of marriage by diluting what marriage means.

If that’s true, then wouldn’t we strengthen marriage by preventing more people from marrying than we currently do? No more mixed-race marriage. No more marriages between people who can’t or won’t have children (after all, marriage is primarily meant to facilitate procreation, according to conservatives). No more marriages for the mentally disabled. No more marriages for those unlikely to be able to support their own children without government assistance.

Just imagine how strong the “institution” of marriage would be then!

I wonder what Jesus would say.

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9 thoughts on “imagine it’s 1945…

  1. Can the Georgia Senate…

    …be declared legally insane? The proposed amendment to the state constitution forbidding gay marriage passed the state senate yesterday. The amendment, designed to fortify heterosexual marriage, passed only after several spoof amendments forbidding a…

  2. I have been talking about this issue a lot lately with my Brother, Chris. In this case I tend to ask not “do they have a right to get married?” but rather “does a state have the right to tell consenting, law-abiding adults that they can’t get married, can’t visit each other in hospital or hospice, etc…” We tend to use the term Freedom a lot in this country, but we define it in the negative. That is–we have “freedom from” things like dictators etc… rather than “freedom to” live the lifestyle that we choose. It’s only in the “feedom from” sense that the current administration can see itself as heoric on the world stage.
    The question for me is always about a society of law as opposed to a society of religious conviction. Do we want a theocracy? Because…you know… that’s always worked out so well for societies in the past (or present, for that matter). I think that civil rights–and a society based on law–might finally protect faith a lot more anyway. I can foresee a time when Christians are not in the majority in this country and will want and need the rights that many minority groups are fighting for right now. I believe that many of the Conservatives fighting this battle have a very selective reading of the Bible. Let’s not forget that Christ also said it’s harder for a rich man to get to heaven than it is for a camel to get through the eye of a needle—and we live in a society that is, for all intents and purposes, run by rich men who often proclaim their affinities with Christ–a Christ that they can only love as they read him selectively. the problem may be that some people–and I try to do this myself–try to read Christ as someone who makes a claim on our lives, who calls us into question. In contras, many Christians of the Pat Robertson stripe read Christ merely as support for their own convictions (like the conviction–for instance–that Free enterprise is the most Christian system in history–or–like some of the morons I grew up with in Georgia who believe that the Bible proves that blacks are inferior to whites and slavery is/was ok.)

  3. Here’s how to send flowers to gay and lesbian couples waiting to marry in San Francisco:
    http://www.livejournal.com/community/twin_cities/517426.html#cutid1
    “Because straight or gay, we believe and we know many people who believe, support and celebrate the right to marriage. And we’d like to show it. We’d like to see all of the people standing in line with flowers of support from all over the country.”
    Or chip in to a PayPal pool to buy flowers for the couples:
    http://www.darrenbarefoot.com/flowers/faq.html

  4. Nicholas D. Kristof
    Published: March 3, 2004
    Marriage: Mix and Match

    Long before President Bush’s call for a “constitutional amendment protecting marriage,” Representative Seaborn Roddenberry of Georgia proposed an amendment that he said would uphold the sanctity of marriage.

    Mr. Roddenberry’s proposed amendment, in December 1912, stated, “Intermarriage between Negroes or persons of color and Caucasians . . . is forever prohibited.” He took this action, he said, because some states were permitting marriages that were “abhorrent and repugnant,” and he aimed to “exterminate now this debasing, ultrademoralizing, un-American and inhuman leprosy.”

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