Remember When Blacks Couldn't Marry Whites?

Looking back in time, it is so easy to see how the U.S Supreme Court was right in making many of its decisions. One might say, they were creating laws. Those creations made this country a much better place for all of us to live. Having said that, many of the historic decisions were not well accepted at the time.

40 years ago this week, on June 12, 1967, the U.S. Supreme Court said that Mildred Jeter, a black woman and Richard Loving, a white man, could marry. In order to change the law and allow such a marriage, the court relied on the fourteenth amendment. In writing the opinion for the court, Chief Justice Earl Warren said:

"This case presents a constitutional question never addressed by this Court: whether a statutory scheme adopted by the State of Virginia to prevent marriages between persons solely on the basis of racial classifications violates the Equal Protection and Due Process Clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment. For reasons which seem to us to reflect the central meaning of those constitutional commands, we conclude that these statutes cannot stand consistently with the Fourteenth Amendment."

Many of the states were outraged with this decision. You see, these laws were created as part of the democratic process. If two people who were of different races made love, it was a misdemeanor as long as they were not married. If they married, it was a felony. The states wanted to protect the sanctity of marriage. The federal circuit court judge cited God in making his decision.

"Almighty God created the races white, black, yellow, malay and red, and he placed them on separate continents. And but for the interference with his arrangement there would be no cause for such marriages. The fact that he separated the races shows that he did not intend for the races to mix."

Continue reading Remember When Blacks Couldn't Marry Whites?

Kerry Should Worry About Senate Seat

John KerryWhen John Kerry announced that he was not going to run for the presidency in 2008, everyone figured that he meant it. Now, as reported on April 15 by Colorado's 9NEWS, he could be mid flip-flop (I invented that term, just for him) and might consider running again:
Sen. John Kerry (D-Massachusetts) reopened the door to a possible 2008 presidential campaign during a book signing in Denver and then again, in an interview with 9NEWS.

...while answering a question from a viewer on the program YOUR SHOW about why he chose not to run, Kerry said he had decided it wasn't the right time.

"Could that change?" Kerry said. "It might. It may change over years. It may change over months. I can't tell you, but I've said very clearly I don't consider myself out of it forever."
But Kerry has bigger problems than running for the White House right now. A poll released three days ago, conducted in Massachusetts by Suffolk University, shows that Kerry should be more worried about getting re-elected to the Senate, let alone getting elected as president:
Senator John Kerry, who recently left the door open to a Presidential bid in 2008, could have problems staying in the US Senate. When voters were asked whether Kerry should run for another six-year term in 2008 or if it is time to give someone else a chance, just 37% indicated that he should seek re-election while 56% said that it was time to give someone else a chance.
Kerry never ceases to amuse...

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