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Not long ago, the prohibition of same-sex marriage, like the prohibition of interracial marriage before it, was so deeply ingrained in our social fabric and legal understandings that the recent turnabout by the New York State Legislature might have seemed unimaginable. As recently as 1986, the United States Supreme Court rejected a gay man’s argument for constitutional protection of his sexual relationship, declaring the argument as “at best, facetious.” In 2001, the court overturned that ruling and accorded same-sex partners the same constitutional protection as heterosexuals. Same-sex marriage may soon become legal in even more states.
What now of the two remaining criminal prohibitions of intimate relationships: incest and polygamy? Even as same sex and interracial relationships are accepted, Americans are now imprisoned for incest or polygamy.
The cases against polygamy and incest are not nearly as strong as most people imagine. Yet they will not become legal anytime soon. To see why, it helps to understand the evolution of moral assessments of interracial and same-sex marriage.
Other publications by this author
- Trayvon Martin Was the Victim of a Stereotype That Has Its Roots in Crime Statistics
- Charles Murray’s ‘Coming Apart’ and the Culture Myth
- The Perils and Promise of Openness
- A Shortage of Eligible Black Men
- Overview of “Is Marriage for White People? How the African American Marriage Decline Affects Everyone”
- Is Marriage for White People? How the African American Marriage Decline Affects Everyone
- The Relationship Market
- Love Beyond Black and White
- Why Interracial Marriage Is Good for Black Women - and the Best Hope for Restoring Marriage in the Black Community
- An Interracial Fix for Black Marriage
Author
- Ralph Richard Banks
- Stanford Law School
- rbanks@stanford.edu
- 650 723.6591