During Loving v Virginia, which struck down bans on interracial marriage, the effect of interracial marriage on children was questioned. The parallels with the Prop 8 case are clear:
The defenders of California’s Prop 8 rely heavily on the work of University of Texas sociologist Mark Regnerus, who argued in a 2012 study that the children of people who engage in same-sex relationships have worse psychological, social, and economic outcomes. (The study generated enormous controversy, and its conclusions have been largely rejected by other social scientists.) In 1967, the state of Virginia’s expert of choice was Albert Gordon, whose book Intermarriage: Interfaith, Interracial, Interethnic attacked the adequacy of interracial parenting. According to Virginia’s solicitor general Robert McIlwaine, Gordon concluded that interracial marriages “hold no promise for a bright and happy future for mankind” and “bequeath to the progeny of those marriages more psychological problems than the parents have a right to bequeath to them.” Interracial marriage is so undesirable, McIlwaine continued, that its negative effects can’t even be managed. He argued that it “causes a child to have almost insuperable difficulties in identification and that the problems which a child of an interracial marriage faces are those which no child can come through without damage to himself.”
(Photo: Maggie George demonstrates with a picture of her family stuck to her back during a protest in front of the U.S. Supreme Court March 26, 2013 in Washington, DC. By Win McNamee/Getty Images)
The Dish 