Those of us who frequently find ourselves defending gay marriage often use comparisons to interracial marriage as a rhetorical tool. Because, these days, anyone whose wardrobe doesn't include a bed sheet agrees that bans on it were ridiculous and reflected a level of ignorance and prejudice that the country has long outgrown.
Right?
And it’s pretty much the consensus that the legalization of interracial marriage is up there with women earning the right to vote when it comes to the whole "arc of the moral universe bends toward justice" thing.
Right?
Um, maybe not.
AOL News reports that a new poll gauging Mississippi Republicans' preferences going into the 2012 election ended up revealing something more startling: Forty-six percent of GOP voters in the state think that interracial marriage should be illegal (and it's not as if the remainder were gung ho for it: Fourteen percent said they were unsure!)
Forty-six percent, guys? As in, close to half? A figure in the "not statistically significant" category would have been what we hoped for on this one.
What's this about? White supremacy? Concern for confused children who grow up to do dysfunctional things like … oh, wait … become president? Sadly, it's more likely that this view actually represents the kind of real-life racial anxiety that fuels a lot of policy positions and political messages in our changing country. And that anxiety doesn't seem to be going anywhere. (Side note: The poll also found that Mississippi Republicans back Haley Barbour, their outgoing governor, to run for president on the GOP ticket in 2012.)
Excuse us as we go ahead and place the non-sarcastic term "postracial America" back on the shelf for at least the next 20 years.
Read more at AOL News.
In other news: Report Debunks Black Panther Case Conspiracy.
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