Same-Gender Marriage"
Harvard Civil Rights - Civil Liberties Law Review, Vol. 37,
pp. 255-288
BY: JOSEPHINE ROSS
Boston College
Law School
Document: Available from the SSRN Electronic Paper Collection:
http://papers.ssrn.com/paper.taf?abstract_id=508022
Paper ID: Boston College Law School Research Paper No. 31
Date: February 2004
Contact: JOSEPHINE ROSS
Email: rossjf at bc.edu
Postal: Boston College
Law School
885 Centre Street
Newton, MA 02459-1163 UNITED STATES
Phone: 617-552-0604
ABSTRACT:
Understanding the sexualization of interracial relationships in
the past illuminates the attitudes prevalent today towards
same-sex couples and the continued opposition to same-sex
marriage. This Article compares heterosexual mixed-race and
same-sex unions (including both mixed-race and mono-race
couples) in the context of history, both legal and cultural. The
history of opposition to interracial marriage in this country is
replete with sexual undertones. Mixed-race couples were viewed
as sexually perverse, and the ban on marriage and sexual
relationships in the States served to run these human
connections underground, making them secret, closeted and sinful
liaisons. In the courts, arguments were made to oppose the
abolition of mixed-race sexuality and marriage that are similar
to arguments currently brought forth to prevent same-sex
marriage. In particular, opponents of mixed-race marriage - like
current opponents of same-sex marriage - were concerned with
biblical creed, natural law, and with the raising of future
generations of Americans. This article also examines the
real-life similarities between couples whose marriages break
race taboos and couples whose marriages break gender taboos.
Even recently, when mixed-race marriage has been legal for over
three decades, many mixed-race couples encounter problems that
should persuade skeptics that the analogy between same-sex love
and mixed-race love is not just a glib legal argument. The
sexualization of mixed-race couples served the same end it does
for gay couples today, including making the deprivation of
marriage rights seem fair. Due to sexual stereotyping, the
"privilege" that allows only some couples to marry does not have
to be understood as a "structured advantage;" instead it is seen
as "deserved and fair."