A. Barton Hinkle on Loving v. Virginia and Gay Marriage

The arguments for laws banning gay
marriage and the arguments for laws banning interracial marriage
are nearly identical: Tradition. States’ rights. Government’s
presumed interest in the ordering of private relationships for the
sake of an ostensible public good. But as A. Barton Hinkle
observes, those arguments did not hold up in 1967, when the Supreme
Court struck down bans on interracial marriage in Loving v.
Virginia, and they don’t hold up now in the expanding legal
battle over same-sex unions.

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