Constitutional Law, Criminal law, Politics, Society

Mississippi Polling: Roughly Half of Polled Republicans in Mississippi Believe Interracial Marriage Should Be Illegal

A poll released this week shows that 46% percent of Mississippi Republicans believe that interracial marriage should be illegal. That staggering number is accompanied by only 40% who believe that adults should be free to marry who they want. This poll just happens to come out on the anniversary of the argument in Loving v. Virginia, 388 U.S. 1 (1967), where the Supreme Court in a 9-0 vote struck down Virginia’s anti-miscegenation statute.

The poll means that one out of two Mississippi Republicans want to return to the pre-Loving status where (under Pace v. Alabama (1883)) couples could be thrown into jail for marrying outside of their race. In the case of Mildred Loving and Richard Perry Loving, Virginia police raid their home in an effort to find them in a sexual act to bring a criminal charge but quickly changed the charge when shown a marriage license of Washington, D.C. They were charged under Section 20-58 of the Virginia Code, which prohibited interracial couples from being married out of state and then returning to Virginia as well as the miscegenation provision under Section 20-59. After they pleaded guilty, Judge Leon M. Bazile handed down a one-year sentence (suspended for 25 years on condition that the couple leave the state of Virginia) with these infamous words:

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.

The argument before the Supreme Court was heard on April 10, 1967 — 44 years ago. If accurate, this poll would indicate that four decades have not changed many minds in the Mississippi GOP.

Source: Public Policy Polling as seen on Reddit.

Jonathan Turley

36 thoughts on “Mississippi Polling: Roughly Half of Polled Republicans in Mississippi Believe Interracial Marriage Should Be Illegal”

  1. Kay S, yes, I’m with you.

    These things happen because someone with a little power and influence wants to get a law passed to do something he wants to enable.

  2. I take issue with the final line. Back in 1967, close to 100 percent of white Mississippians – regardless of party affiliation – probably believed that interracial marriage should be illegal.

  4. 46% of the rest of the country thinks mississippi should have been allowed to secede.

    and that doesn’t count people who have actually been to mississippi. those #’s are even higher

  5. Part of the issues relate to simply having too many laws and creating laws without really determining that they serve a public purpose.

  6. This doesn’t surprise me much. I’m white, but I’ll tell you there is more racism in this world than people realize. In my state I see confederate flags flying all over. There are more hillbilly/rednecks than I care to count. These are usually the birthers who could have a copy of the presidents birth certificate in their hand, framed, and would still claim its fake. These are the people who say their rights are being taken away but then when you ask them which ones have nothing to say. They’re the ones spitting tobacco, using the “N” word only at home, raising wonderful little racist, minority hating children.

    They’re tea partiers, mostly.

  7. Funny thing, I have always thought it prudent that a law should issue forbidding 46% (or even more) of Mississippians from marrying or engaging in any other activity promoting procreation.

  8. Patric,

    And might I inquire as to whether you know who Rashida Jones is? Actress on “Parks and Recreations” and daughter of Quincy Jones and Peggy Lipton? Great galloping gophers! I tell you it was love at first sight. Then she spoke and sealed the deal. Beautiful, smart and funny! She so charmed Craig Ferguson, he came out from behind the desk to interview her the first time she was on his show. I tell you she’s trying to take the place of the Rachael Weisz in my Hollywood girlfriend book. She just might succeed.

  9. One has to wonder if that 40% ever read the newspapers. How well has “separation” of the sub-cultures served us so far?

    I personally view miscegenation as the only hope we have.

  11. Buddha,
    you hit the nail on the head. Mississippi remains stagnant while the world moves on from the 19th century. Remind to add Mississippi to my list of states to stay out of.

  12. Why have I never met an actual “white” person or an actual “black” person?

    Why do I only encounter people who are of the one-and-only diversely Colored Race of humans?

    As I directly observe we humans are, and only are, colored people, miscegenation is actually impossible.

    Then there is that silly DNA evidence that all living humans have as ancestors those few hundred folks who lived in a small area where they survived a mass extinction of humans some tens of thousands of years ago?

    Are humans relentlessly striving for yet another mass extinction of humans?

    No wonder science and scientists are utterly contemptible?

    Imagine what might happen were people permitted to be honest with self and others?

    The end of the world as we now know it?

    Would that, were it ever possible, be undesirable or desirable?

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