I have already made the comparison between the anti-gay marriage movement and the anti-miscegenation laws of long ago.  The anti-miscegenation laws made it illegal for people of different races to marry.  These laws, long thought to be protective of genetic integrity and civilization as a whole, were struck down as unconstitutional by the US Supreme Court in 1967.

Protective of civilization?  Gee, that sounds familiar.

Perhaps we should put the comparison in a slightly more personal light.

Richard and Mildred Loving were married in June of 1958 in Washington DC because, as an interracial couple, they could not marry in their home state of Virginia because it still upheld the anti-miscegenation law which stated that interracial marriages were illegal.  Despite their marriage being illegal in their home state, they returned there after marrying and lived together in Caroline County, Virginia.

Early in the morning on July 15, 1958, they awoke in their bed with three flashlights shining in their faces.

"What are you doing in bed with this lady?" a voice demanded from behind the lights.

Mildred was the first to respond.

"I am his wife," she said.

As if to reinforce his wife's response, Richard pointed to their five week old Washington DC marriage license hanging on the wall in their bedroom.

Caroline County Sheriff R. Garnett Brooks, not impressed by the license, said, "That's no good here."

The sheriff, along with two deputies, who had entered the house through an unlocked door at 2:00 in the morning, promptly arrested Richard and Mildred.  The lawmen charged the couple with violating Virginia's law prohibiting interracial marriage because Richard was white and Mildred was "colored."

The arrest and conviction of the young couple — Richard was 24 and Mildred was 18 — is similar to the arrest four years earlier of civil rights heroine Rosa Parks.  Whereas Rosa Parks refused to obey Montgomery's ordinance requiring colored people to sit in the rear of city buses, Richard and Mildred Loving refused to obey Virginia's anti-miscegenation law.

Writing about the case in Emerge magazine, Victoria Valentine said the Lovings "didn't start to make history, they just wished to live as husband and wife."

Born in Caroline County, Virginia, Richard Loving and Mildred Jeter grew up on the same road near one another in the town of Central Point.  Valentine described Central Point as the type of community where colored and white families were friendly with each other.  Within their community they acknowledged relationships between one another.  In fact, a number of the women birthed interracial children but were never married.

At that time in America, only a few couples married across racial lines.  According to US Census data, in 1960 there were 51,000 black/white married couples in the whole of the United States.  Of that number, 26,000 were black woman/white man couples.

For comparison, there were 328,000 black/white married couples in 1995.  Of those 328,000 couples, 122,000 of them were black women/white men combinations just like the Lovings.

The reason there were so few interracial marriages at the time Richard and Mildred were arrested has more to do with the laws manifesting religious values rather than constitutional values.  One comes to this conclusion after reading Judge Leon M. Basile's decision in the Loving's case.  He sentenced the couple to one year in jail, then suspended the sentence on the condition the couple remain out of the state of Virginia for 25 years.

Judge Basile admonished the Lovings in his ruling when he said, "Almighty God created the races white, black, yellow, malay and red, and He placed them on separate continents.  And, but for the interference with His arrangements, there would be no cause for such marriage."

After the trial, the Lovings moved to Washington DC, where they lived with their three children.

After spending several years in exile, homesick for family and friends, the Lovings decided to continue their fight to get back home.  They sought help from the American Civil Liberties Union, who agreed to take on the case.

In 1963, still living in Washington DC, they initiated a suit challenging the constitutionality of the anti-miscegenation law in Virginia.  In March of 1966, the Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals upheld the law and the ruling against the Lovings.

Convinced that they did indeed have the right to marry and live where they wished, the Lovings appealed the ruling until it landed on the docket at the US Supreme Court.

It should come as no surprise that the US Supreme Court told Sheriff Brooks and Judge Basile to stay out of Richard and Mildred Loving's bedroom.

On June 12th, 1967, ten days after Richard and Mildred celebrated their 9th anniversary, the US Supreme Court unanimously affirmed the constitutionally protected right of a white man and a black woman, and, to a greater degree, all interracial couples, to be married.  Having ruled that the laws were unconstitutional, the US Supreme Court forced the 16 states which still had anti-miscegenation laws on their books to erase them.

And how does this relate to the gay marriage debate, you ask?

The anti-miscegenation laws, originally passed in the 1800s, were enacted to protect "white purity" as many believed was God's intention.  This segregationist approach wrapped in the shroud of religion was the same mindset that brought us church-sanctioned slavery and the Inquisition.

Remember that there was never a non-religious reason for the anti-miscegenation laws.

The same can be said for the push to deny marriage rights to same-sex couples.

We can safely assume that the Lovings were outcasts because of their differing ethnicities just as homosexuals are outcasts today because of their sexual orientation (which makes them different from the majority).  Once again, based on fear and the strong belief that God is on their side, majorities repress minorities and deny them rights which should be available to everyone rather than a select, popular segment of society.

If the institution of marriage is indeed sacrosanct, striking down the anti-miscegenation laws should have caused the same riotous outcries and calls for amending the Constitution as the gay marriage debate has.  After all, gay marriage is a currently open question whereas the anti-miscegenation laws are history.  Here we are more than 35 years after they were struck down and I see no movement to reverse their demise.

Should we not have protected marriage then just as we claim to be trying to protect it now?

Is it because the normal evolution of society has seen fit to eliminate support for those laws and ideals from most intelligent people?  And what makes the gay marriage question any different?