Pro-Gay Marriage Ads Recall Virginia's Shame

The Miami Herald is reporting that a coalition of civil rights groups that back gay marriage is using photos of prominent mixed race couples in an advertising campaign marking the 40th anniversary of Loving vs. Virginia, a U.S. Supreme Court decision that gave interracial couples the right to marry. (The photo at left is of the plaintifs in that landmark case). See the story at http://www.miamiherald.com/884/story/126417.html While Virginia was in the forefront of enlightened thought in the years of the founding fathers of the USA, it long held a place of shame with the Jim Crow laws, anti-miscegenation laws, and massive resistance to school desegregation. In fact, there are still a few public buildings existing where one can see that there were separate restrooms for blacks and whites (the ones for whites were always nicer). Here's a portion of the story:

''We're honoring and celebrating something that just over 40 years ago some Americans said was immoral and wrong and could not happen,'' said Jimmy Creech, executive director of Faith in America, a gay rights advocacy group that is bankrolling the ad campaign. ``We're celebrating the wisdom that prejudice and bigotry was removed from the law books and Americans were given the right to marry the person they loved, regardless of race.''

The ''Freedom to Marry'' campaign -- to be launched Monday -- consists of six ads that will run in two Capitol Hill publications, Roll Call and Politico. They feature photos of interracial couples like golfer Tiger Woods and his wife, Elin, and former U.S. Defense Secretary Bill Cohen and his wife, Janet Langhart, who have written a book about their marriage, Love in Black and White. Couples of different ethnicities, like Bush and Martinez, also are featured.

Others in the ad: Republican Senate Leader Mitch McConnell and his wife, Labor Secretary Elaine Chao, and Sen. Jim Webb, D-Va., and his wife, Hong Le.

The ads note that 16 states still banned interracial marriages until the Supreme Court struck down a Virginia law in 1967, finding ``the freedom to marry has long been recognized as one of the vital personal rights essential to the orderly pursuit of happiness by free men.

Not surprisingly, many of those who opposed interracial marriage were "conservative Christians" who used the Bible to justify their bigotry. Somethings never change.