Civics: Failed Amendments, The Community Center, Wednesday Evening
Sometimes, Alex let current events write the syllabus for her. Granted, these were 2011 current events, and the island wasn't in 2011, but she wasn't about to let that stop her.
"This week," she began, "we're going to talk about the attempted use of amendments to curtail rights, or at least limit who rights can, moving forward, be applied to, in two very different but somewhat analogous situations. Both involve the civil and religious rite whereby two -- or, arguably, more -- people join their lives together in what we know of as matrimony."
This week, the first quote on the whiteboard was short, and contained ellipses to show that it had been abridged.
Intermarriage between negros or persons of color and Caucasians... within the United States... is forever prohibited.
"I don't have the full text," she said. "I changed lesson plans at the very last minute, so I was ill-prepared. You should always be suspicious of context, and of what hidden clauses might have revealed, but in this case, the skepticism would be unfounded. The word 'miscegenation' means the mixing of different racial groups; people who proposed this amendment felt that other racial groups -- specifically, Africans, in this instance -- were inferior, and that therefore intermarriage was therefore going to harm their superior bloodlines."
She needed to pause there for a sip of tea, and to keep some level of professionalism.
"I realize some of you are not from this particular world, so just for clarity's sake: these arguments are all bullshit. There are no clear-cut races, scientifically speaking, and there's much greater variance within ethnic groups than between them. There was a great deal of prejudice against Africans, because the Caucasians had been selling and trading them as slaves as recently as a generation previous. It's easier to justify treating people like property if you tell yourself that they're hopelessly inferior, but I suspect I'm derailing."
Well, she had tried.
"The amendment was proposed three times, and failed. This sounds like a victory for tolerance, but the prevailing bigotry still existed, and many states had rules against intermarriage. Other states allowed it, but traveling from one state to the next could cause a mixed-ethnicity marriage to no longer be recognized -- or, in a some cases, to be a crime. Anti-miscegenation laws weren't struck down, formally, by the Supreme Court until 1967, which is nearly a century after this proposal was first made."
She set the cup down again and sighed. "That was almost fifty years ago. The United States now readily recognizes marriages between any ethnicity; that past seems like a long time ago. In some ways, it is. However."
Marriage in the United States shall consist only of the union of a man and a woman. Neither this Constitution or the constitution of any State, nor state or federal law, shall be construed to require that marital status or the legal incidents thereof be conferred upon unmarried couples or groups.
"If it isn't immediately obvious what this law is attempting to rule against," Alex continued, "there are two areas the Federal Marriage Amendment is hoping to block. The first would be gay marriage -- two individuals of the same gender marrying. The second would be polygamy, the act of marriage being opened to more than two people -- either two individuals marrying a third, or a man taking several wives, or a wife taking extra husbands."
"I said before the two situations aren't directly analogous, and they aren't. There was an easier battle with the Anti-Miscegenation Amendments; marriage was defined as being a man marrying a woman, and the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment states that all people must be treated equally. If a couple can't marry due to race, that violates the Fourteenth Amendment. Arguments against gay marriage insist that the term 'marriage' is no longer applicable, since that term has long related to a union between heterosexual couples, one man and one woman; in other words, 'marriage' changes its definition if we alter the basics of it to allow for gender variance.
"Some people argue for civil unions, which calls to mind the idea of 'separate but equal' -- this country has a long history of setting aside separate categories for minorities and trying to argue that separating out undesirables with equivalent facilities isn't prejudice. But the Court has ruled previously, in specific cases, that separate isn't equal.
"The Federal Marriage Amendment failed, and some -- very few -- states have began to recognize gay marriage. As a reaction, many states pushed out a Defense of Marriage Act. Unlike the miscegenation laws earlier, if a gay couple flies out to New York to marry on the weekend, no one will arrest them upon their return; however, their home state has the right to not recognize their marriage, nor grant them any of the rights or privileges of being legally married, as they would do for any other couple being married in New York that weekend."
Alex glanced at her watch and shook her head. "We haven't even touched the issues of how to define gender, in a society with transgender individuals, or how to approach the issue of polygamy, but if I drone on any longer, we won't have time to talk. So ... let's talk."
"This week," she began, "we're going to talk about the attempted use of amendments to curtail rights, or at least limit who rights can, moving forward, be applied to, in two very different but somewhat analogous situations. Both involve the civil and religious rite whereby two -- or, arguably, more -- people join their lives together in what we know of as matrimony."
This week, the first quote on the whiteboard was short, and contained ellipses to show that it had been abridged.
Intermarriage between negros or persons of color and Caucasians... within the United States... is forever prohibited.
"I don't have the full text," she said. "I changed lesson plans at the very last minute, so I was ill-prepared. You should always be suspicious of context, and of what hidden clauses might have revealed, but in this case, the skepticism would be unfounded. The word 'miscegenation' means the mixing of different racial groups; people who proposed this amendment felt that other racial groups -- specifically, Africans, in this instance -- were inferior, and that therefore intermarriage was therefore going to harm their superior bloodlines."
She needed to pause there for a sip of tea, and to keep some level of professionalism.
"I realize some of you are not from this particular world, so just for clarity's sake: these arguments are all bullshit. There are no clear-cut races, scientifically speaking, and there's much greater variance within ethnic groups than between them. There was a great deal of prejudice against Africans, because the Caucasians had been selling and trading them as slaves as recently as a generation previous. It's easier to justify treating people like property if you tell yourself that they're hopelessly inferior, but I suspect I'm derailing."
Well, she had tried.
"The amendment was proposed three times, and failed. This sounds like a victory for tolerance, but the prevailing bigotry still existed, and many states had rules against intermarriage. Other states allowed it, but traveling from one state to the next could cause a mixed-ethnicity marriage to no longer be recognized -- or, in a some cases, to be a crime. Anti-miscegenation laws weren't struck down, formally, by the Supreme Court until 1967, which is nearly a century after this proposal was first made."
She set the cup down again and sighed. "That was almost fifty years ago. The United States now readily recognizes marriages between any ethnicity; that past seems like a long time ago. In some ways, it is. However."
Marriage in the United States shall consist only of the union of a man and a woman. Neither this Constitution or the constitution of any State, nor state or federal law, shall be construed to require that marital status or the legal incidents thereof be conferred upon unmarried couples or groups.
"If it isn't immediately obvious what this law is attempting to rule against," Alex continued, "there are two areas the Federal Marriage Amendment is hoping to block. The first would be gay marriage -- two individuals of the same gender marrying. The second would be polygamy, the act of marriage being opened to more than two people -- either two individuals marrying a third, or a man taking several wives, or a wife taking extra husbands."
"I said before the two situations aren't directly analogous, and they aren't. There was an easier battle with the Anti-Miscegenation Amendments; marriage was defined as being a man marrying a woman, and the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment states that all people must be treated equally. If a couple can't marry due to race, that violates the Fourteenth Amendment. Arguments against gay marriage insist that the term 'marriage' is no longer applicable, since that term has long related to a union between heterosexual couples, one man and one woman; in other words, 'marriage' changes its definition if we alter the basics of it to allow for gender variance.
"Some people argue for civil unions, which calls to mind the idea of 'separate but equal' -- this country has a long history of setting aside separate categories for minorities and trying to argue that separating out undesirables with equivalent facilities isn't prejudice. But the Court has ruled previously, in specific cases, that separate isn't equal.
"The Federal Marriage Amendment failed, and some -- very few -- states have began to recognize gay marriage. As a reaction, many states pushed out a Defense of Marriage Act. Unlike the miscegenation laws earlier, if a gay couple flies out to New York to marry on the weekend, no one will arrest them upon their return; however, their home state has the right to not recognize their marriage, nor grant them any of the rights or privileges of being legally married, as they would do for any other couple being married in New York that weekend."
Alex glanced at her watch and shook her head. "We haven't even touched the issues of how to define gender, in a society with transgender individuals, or how to approach the issue of polygamy, but if I drone on any longer, we won't have time to talk. So ... let's talk."