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.
