Is the Supreme Court Going to Settle for “States’ Rights” on Same-Sex Marriage?

Peter Dreier, Truthout | News Analysis | Truthout | April 6, 2013

Ryan Toney, a student at The George Washington University, demonstrates with other supporters of same-sex marriage outside the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington, March 27, 2013. (Photo: Doug Mills / The New York Times)

Peter Dreier reviews some of the options available to the US Supreme Court in its review of two same-sex marriage cases now before it and their relationship to the 1967 decision that struck down antimiscegenation laws and allowed interracial couples to marry.

Should the states decide whether black Americans can marry white Americans?

Today that idea seems absurd. Most Americans believe that states shouldn’t be allowed to trample the basic right of interracial couples to marry – even if a majority of people in a state want to do so. It would be unfair – a clear violation of equal rights. That’s one reason we have a federal government.

In 1967, in Loving v. Virginia, the nation’s highest court knocked down state anti-miscegenation laws.

Now the nation – and the Supreme Court – confront a very similar situation, only this time the issue is same-sex marriage.

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