Thumbs Down on the D&C's Dumb Idea

Mildred Loving died this week.  Her obituary was in the New York Times.  She was 68.  Who was Mildred Loving?  A black woman who fell in love with a white man  back in 1958 and had the audacity to marry him even though the law said no, that was forbidden.

Mildred and Richard Loving married in Washington, DC, then moved back to Virginia where the law said that a marriage between people of different races was invalid even though it was performed in a place where it was legal.

Five weeks after Mildred and Richard married, the county sheriff and two deputies burst into their bedroom in Virginia, hauled them out of bed, and arrested them both.

To make a long story short, Mildred's anger over this injustice eventually boiled over, prompting her to write a letter to Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, who referred her to the American Civil Liberties Union.  The ACLU took up the case, which eventually was decided upon by the US Supreme Court.  In 1967, the court overturned anti-miscegenation laws forbidding mixed marriages between races. 

At one time, 38 states had such laws on the books.  Which brings us to the editorial in this morning's Democrat and Chronicle titled "Wedded miss."  In that piece, which is about gay marriage, the editorial writer suggests that the matter of whether gays be allowed to marry should be decided in NY State by putting it to a vote of the people.

I'm sorry.  Letting the majority vote on whether the minority should have rights is risky business indeed.  If the good people of Virginia had been asked in 1958  to vote on whether blacks and whites should be allowed to marry, would that measure have passed?  Fat chance.