In my husband's lifetime...

[heidi]

Richard and Mildred Loving were married in 1958 in Washington D.C. because their home state of Virginia still upheld the antimiscegenation law which stated that interracial marriages were illegal. They were married, then lived together in Caroline County, Virginia. In 1959 they were prosecuted and convicted of violating the states's antimiscegenation law. They were each sentenced one year in jail, but promised the sentence would be suspended if they agreed to leave the state and not return for 25 years. Forced to move, they returned to Washington D.C. where, in 1963, they initiated a suit challenging the constitutionality of the antimiscegenation law. In March of 1966, the Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals upheld the law, but in June of 1967, the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously ruled the law unconstitutional. Thus, in 1967 the 16 states which still had antimiscegenation laws on their books were forced to erase them.

Just some backstory which might be useful in thinking through what Massacheusetts did yesterday.

And the Supreme Court ruling about antimiscegenation happened within my husband's lifetime.

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Within my own lifetime...

When my parents bought their first house, just after I was born, there were areas of Miami Beach that they couldn't purchase on, because of restrictive covenants that barred Jews. When the were able to move up to a nicer house about 8 years later - in 1979 - they could not purchase on two of the "private" islands (which sounds a lot ritzier than it is - this is Miami Beach, the city that is three miles wide and speckled with islands) - same restriction. And I remember being able to go play at a friend's house on one of those islands only because I didn't look Jewish, so it wouldn't be a problem.

And yes, all these restrictions are based on/linked to the concept that there is something immoral/wrong/heathen/bad about being Jewish. Aren't they, at the basest level?

And that's all probably going into the conclusions I've drawn over the past decade or so about gay rights issues - because I don't see the restrictions as any different than the ones that controlled where I could live when I was eight.