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Old 02-14-2012, 09:56 PM   #265
richlevy
King Of Wishful Thinking
 
Join Date: Jan 2001
Location: Philadelphia Suburbs
Posts: 6,669
Tonight I watched part of a documentary on the Loving case, which caused the Federal courts to overturn miscegenation laws against interracial marriage. Listening to the opinion of the judges supporting enforcing the law, wrapping prejudice in the name of G-d, and listening to all of the people who were so sure that segregation and miscegenation laws made sense and were G-d approved, showed me how important a role the Federal government plays.

Because each state's citizen is a citizen of the United States. And while rights flow to the states through the 10th Amendment, the core Constitution itself and the 14th Amendment give the Federal government the right to protect the unalienable rights of it's citizens from the states.

I recommend watching The Loving Story on HBO. Listening to all of these people, some obvious jerks but many well meaning, talk about their belief in the inevitability and 'rightness' of these laws, brings so much into focus. Seen through the lens of history, their arguments fall flat, but in that day a majority either believed them or lacked the will to oppose them.


From here
Quote:
The trial judge in the case, Leon M. Bazile, echoing Johann Friedrich Blumenbach's 18th-century interpretation of race, proclaimed that “ 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 arrangement there would be no cause for such marriages. The fact that he separated the races shows that he did not intend for the races to mix.
FYI, the judge's archive page at the Virginia Historical Society makes no mention of the Loving case.
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Last edited by richlevy; 02-14-2012 at 10:08 PM. Reason: add quote
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