On Miscegenation and Prop 8

Interracial Marriage in the U.S.

This webpage offers an interactive map showing which states restricted interracial couples during every year from 1662 and 1967. Users can change the years and states by simply clicking selectively. It's awesome.

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Today, the California Supreme Court upheld a voter-approved ban on same-sex marriage.

However, does majority rule justify appropriate decision-making? History has shown us that the will of the majority does not always make things right. In light of California's anti-miscegenation laws of the 19th and early 20th centuries, if Californians were polled at that time, a majority would have voted in favor of prohibiting miscegenation/interracial marriage. However, the morally upright decision was to allow people to marry whomever they want.

These anti-miscegenations laws were specifically designed to ensure white purity and to prevent any white Americans from trespassing the color line.

Asian Americans, in particular, have faced shocking effects of this adherence to the color line in the Cable Act (1922-1936). The Cable Act specifies that any U.S.-born woman marrying a "person ineligible for citizenship" would automatically lose her U.S. citizenship. It is important to note that the ONLY race and hence only aliens "ineligible for citizenship" at that time were Asian immigrants. Therefore, our nation's earliest anti-miscegenation laws were specifically aimed at Asians, using both the Cable Act and anti-miscegenation laws that prevent Asians and whites from marrying.

Fortunately, with time comes change. The Supreme Court of California was wise enough in 1948 to acknowledge how unlawful anti-miscegenation laws are. The Perez vs. Sharp decision ruled against anti-miscegenation laws, claiming that they were based on racial distinctions that were "by their very nature, odious to a free people."

Today, interracial marriage is accepted almost anywhere with anyone in the United States. Even individuals who do not necessarily want their son/daughter to marry across the racial divide would be hesitant to turn back Loving vs. Virginia. People today consider marriage to be a private affair between two consenting adults.

Marriage, as an institution, is one of the most conservative, traditional, and entrenched institutions we have. Marriage leads to a more stable society and same-sex unions, by virtue of it being the same type of institution, also stabilize society. What will de-stabilize society is fear for the unknown and hatred toward the outer norm. People should be given a chance to enter this stabilizing institution in whatever form they choose: heterosexually or homosexually. I hope that one day in the not so distant future, our society will adopt a more tolerant attitude toward same-sex marriage. In the future, I hope citizens will reflect on California's upholding of Prop 8 to be a draconian and antiquated move.