Friday Gay Blogging I

The big news, of course, is that Mildred Loving died. Everyone noticed. Everyone who counts, at least.

From Andrew Sullivan:

May one woman who pioneered the fight for marriage equality, the remarkable Mildred Loving, rest in peace. There's a lovely obit here. Her work is not over for the last Americans denied the right to marry the person they love. And in California, we may be facing our next civil rights watershed, as the state court prepares to issue its own ruling 60 years after it was the first state to invalidate anti-miscegenation laws in 1948. The work goes on. But Loving's poignant, quiet heroism will always inspire.

As I see it, Loving v Virginia is central to any case for same-sex marriage. Contrary to the scary "facts" quoted by the right, the case was not decided on full faith and credit, but on equal protection and due process:

This case presents a constitutional question never addressed by this Court: whether a statutory scheme adopted by the State of Virginia to prevent marriages between persons solely on the basis of racial classifications violates the Equal Protection and Due Process Clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment. 1 For reasons which seem to us to reflect the central meaning of those constitutional commands, we conclude that these statutes cannot stand consistently with the Fourteenth Amendment.

What's more important, the Court recognized marriage as a fundamental right and that the state cannot restrict anyone's freedom to marry without a compelling, rational reason.

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.

And from Joe.My.God, her own words on the right to marry:

I believe all Americans, no matter their race, no matter their sex, no matter their sexual orientation, should have that same freedom to marry. Government has no business imposing some people’s religious beliefs over others. Especially if it denies people’s civil rights. I am still not a political person, but I am proud that Richard’s and my name is on a court case that can help reinforce the love, the commitment, the fairness, and the family that so many people, black or white, young or old, gay or straight seek in life. I support the freedom to marry for all. That’s what Loving, and loving, are all about.

Andy Towle has the full statement.

That statement throws into high relief the hypocrisy of those who honor the black civil rights movement and yet deny that gays deserve the same, as Timothy Kincaid points out:

There are those who loudly proclaim the morality of the civil rights efforts that were fought over the freedom and equality under law for persons of African descent yet who actively oppose those same freedoms and equalities for gay people. They “take great umbrage” at the notion that the struggle for equality for gay folks is in any way similar to that of black folk.

Mildred Loving was not such a person. Mildred never set out to be a champion for African-American rights or for mixed-race relationship rights. She just wanted to love and be left alone.

Amanda Marcotte has some perspective on the place of Loving in the fight against the right:

Loving seems set in stone, like it’s ancient history, but it was decided only 6 years before Roe v Wade, and 2 years after the Supreme Court gave married couples the right to use contraception. It was, in other words, in the same cluster of decisions that was based around the right that keeps wingnuts up at night, the individual’s right to conduct their private lives as they see fit, outside of the reach of a religion-and-bigotry-motivated state legislature. When wingnuts scream about “states’ rights”, interracial marriage rights fall into the class of rights they think the state should have a right to take from you. Not that I think that will happen, because clearly the wingnutteria is selective about what rights an individual does or doesn’t have under state power, and they know that bringing back the ban on interracial marriage would not go over well.* But it’s worth remembering that when conservatives scream “leave it to the states”, it’s not just the individual’s right to birth control or gay marriage or abortion or sodomy they’re threatening, but also the legal groundwork that lay under Loving v Virginia.

*Even if they could get popular support for bringing back the ban in some states, the fact that it’s a right that many Republican stalwarts, including Clarence Thomas, have made use of would put it permanently on the back burner, I’d think.

I'm not so sure about the back-curner argument -- consider the fact that a group is planning to protest Griswold v Connecticut, the first of the landmark personal freedom cases, in June. And merely because the Clarence Thomases of the world take advantage of a right themselves doesn't mean they think everyone should be able to. Quite the opposite.

Mildred and Ricahrd Loving are entitled to places in the roster of gay American heroes -- or make that just plain "American heroes." Because the whole point is, what applies to one of us, applies to all of us.

There are also commentaries by Pam Spaulding and PZ Myers.

Marcotte left an interesting comment on Spaulding's post:

I wonder if wingnuts look at the aftermath of Loving and how interracial relationships went from illegal to mundane in a generation, and think about how a similar court decision for same-sex couples could create the same precedent. I suspect so.

You'd better believe it -- that's what scares them, and why any non-condemnatory mention of homosexuality is "promoting" it. Just look at a press release from Focus on the Family, American Family Association, or Peter LaBarbera and note how many times the phrase "deviant lifestyle" shows up. They can't afford for people to see us as normal.