In January of 1959 a Virginia Circuit Court judge wrote, “Almighty God created the races white, black, yellow […] and he placed them on separate continents. […] The fact that he separated the races shows that he did not intend for the races to mix.” He used this rationale to find Richard Loving, a white man, and Mildred Jeter, a black woman, in violation of Virgina’s law banning interracial marriages. In 1967 in Loving v. Virgina, however, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled the state’s rationale for banning interracial marriages was irrational, thus violating the Loving’s rights under the due process clause of the 14th Amendment of the United States Constitution.
Yet 46 years later a similar argument that “God created Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve,” is still unjustly used to deny the right to a civil marriage to same-sex couples. According to a recent poll by the Pew Charitable Trust, 59% of the general population opposes gay marriage, while 80% of those with a high level of religious commitment oppose gay marriage. Opponents of gay marriage argue that going against this Biblical order would degrade the institution of marriage.
Keep in mind, though, that in Las Vegas couples can be married by Elvis impersonators and at drive through windows. Marriage is at the most basic level a legal, civil contract, not a sacred religious rite. All couples, after all, must be granted a civil marriage license. Under the Establishment Clause of the Constitution, there is no rational basis for denying civil marriage to same-sex couples.
The only way to guarantee equal rights for gays and lesbians is to expand marriage to same-sex marriage. All 50 states must recognize a marriage regardless of where it took place, yet states have a choice as to whether to recognize same-sex unions or not. A Vermont couple that has a same-sex union has many of the same rights as a married couple, but 85% of same-sex unions are performed between out of state couples, whom in their home states have no legal rights to inheritance, to sue for wrongful death if their spouse dies as a result of negligence, or to even visit a spouse in an intensive care unit at a hospital. Further, the General Accounting Office found that 1,049 federal rights, privileges and benefits are contingent on marital status, and are thus are denied to same-sex couples.
Forty-six years after the case of Loving v. Virginia, marriage and accompanying rights are still irrationally and unconstitutionally denied to couples seeking those rights. This must change. The only thing that can be done to protect the integrity of the institution of marriage is to extend it to all couples, regardless of sexual orientation.