Time Chips Away At Another Wrong

A sign at the Oxford, Miss., courthouse in the years before integration, shown in a photograph the author found displayed at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport as part of a Martin Luther King Jr. exhibit.
A sign at the Oxford, Miss., courthouse in the years before integration, shown in a photograph the author found displayed at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport as part of a Martin Luther King Jr. exhibit.

"It's been over 40 years since Mildred Loving was given the right to marry the person of her choice. The hatred and fears have long since vanished and she and her husband lived full lives together; so it will be for the same-sex couples. It is time to let that beacon of freedom shine brighter on all our brothers and sisters. We will be stronger for it."

-- Circuit Judge Chris Piazza

Mildred Loving was black. Her husband, Richard, was white. Their marriage as an interracial couple was illegal in Virginia. They were arrested and sentenced to a year in jail. The trial judge in their conviction wrote what everybody used to know: "Almighty God created the races white, black, yellow, malay and red, and he placed them on separate continents ... The fact that he separated the races shows that he did not intend for the races to mix."

To many, that made complete sense back then. Just like "God created Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve" makes complete sense to some people now.

In overturning Arkansas' constitutional ban on same-sex marriage, Pulaski County Circuit Judge Chris Piazza reminded us cultural bias and prejudice must be overcome anew in every generation.

I'm lucky. I grew up in a culture that was profoundly wrong about something important. That taught me to be willing to question inherited social and religious values. In my childhood, the voting public in Mississippi was certain about something: Segregation was right and good; integration was dangerous and threatening to our traditional values and our cherished way of life.

No candidate who implied equal rights for black people might be acceptable could be elected. In 1964, my fifth-grade teacher took a poll of our class: Segregationists 31, Integrationists 2. I was one of the 2. My shamed girlfriend broke up with me that day.

The 1967 Loving v. Virginia Supreme Court ruling declaring laws banning interracial marriage unconstitutional followed from the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education ruling overturning "separate but equal" schools. I remember some of the backlash, including the "Impeach Earl Warren" billboards.

These are important memories right now, as we walk through another period of expanding freedoms.

My neighbors who were so opposed to equal rights for black people were very good people. They were doctors and merchants, Sunday School teachers and police, farmers and pastors. They were the parents of my classmates. They coached our Little League teams and led our Scout troops. They taught us to do right and play fair. They were good people. They just grew up believing something wrong -- that black people are inferior to white people and so the races should be separated. Often their beliefs were visceral. Their guts reacted when thinking of certain interracial things.

They believed the Bible informed them -- the story of the curse of Ham (Genesis 9) and the zeal of Phinehas (Numbers 25); the evil of two kinds of seed in a field (Deuteronomy 22:9)and of cattle of mixed kinds (Leviticus 19:19). The Bible says, "You shall not intermarry..." (Deuteronomy 7:3); "Iron does not mix with clay." (Daniel 2:43)

Those passages were as convincing to those conscientious neighbors 50 years ago as the seven clobber passages against gay people are to many well-meaning Christians today. Good people can be very wrong.

Last spring my attention was arrested in the Atlanta airport by a photograph I recognized -- a photo from my childhood. It was in the international terminal's Martin Luther King exhibit. The picture showed the courthouse on the square in my hometown, Oxford, Miss. I recognized the buildings, and I recognized the sign: "Ladies Rest Room: Whites Only." I remembered that sign on the north side of our county courthouse in the middle of the beautiful Oxford square. I guess I passed it almost daily on the way to school. There are no more signs like that in Oxford.

Hopefully we are no longer bothered by people of other colors sharing our public spaces. Biblical Christians no longer quote those racist clobber verses. We now understand that every verse about being an authentic human being applies to all races.

Hopefully we are no longer bothered by interracial couples. I think the most beautiful girl in the world is my wonderful Amer-Asian granddaughter.

Soon we'll be embarrassed by our anxieties over gay people. The clobber verses will sound irrelevant, and we'll recognize that every Bible verse about love and faithfulness and about fruitful households speaks to same-sex couples also. Judge Piazza is right. We will be stronger for it.

LOWELL GRISHAM IS AN EPISCOPAL PRIEST WHO LIVES IN FAYETTEVILLE.

Commentary on 05/23/2014

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