Miscegenation less popular than gay marriage?

December 4, 2008 2:45 PM

Would an anti-miscegenation referendum pass in Alabama today?

My friend thinks so, but has nothing to back it up.

I disagree, but, likewise, have nothing.

I'd love to have something at least semi-authoritative to present. If not current opinion polls on this exact question (I haven't found any), then maybe demographic stuff?

Yes, this is the result of some post-Prop 8 speculation.

posted by snoe to law & government (7 comments total)

While I feel that the comparison is interesting (interracial vs homosexual marriage) and this is the kind of thing that I debate with my friends, I don't think that there is any empirical data to offer up an answer. As such, I don't know how this can be prevented from devolving into chat-filter.
posted by anansi at 2:55 PM on December 4, 2008

From November 8, 2000:

Alabama voters on Tuesday repealed the state's century-old ban against interracial marriage, an unenforceable but embarrassing throwback to the state's segregationist past. The vote was running 59 percent to 41 percent, with 58 percent of the vote counted.
posted by EmilyClimbs at 3:01 PM on December 4, 2008 [2 favorites]

I stand corrected.
posted by anansi at 3:11 PM on December 4, 2008

Would an anti-miscegenation referendum pass in Alabama today?

No one would even bring it up. It would be a waste of time. Such laws were found unconstitutional by the Supreme Court many decades ago.
posted by JimN2TAW at 3:32 PM on December 4, 2008

The vote in 2000 is influenced by the fact that the ban was well-known to be unconstitutional. In a hypothetical world in which the constitutional question wasn't settled, there might have been a different result.
posted by Dec One at 4:01 PM on December 4, 2008

As an Alabaman, I would say Alabamian.

Here's a breakdown of the vote by county. If you know anything about various regions of Alabama, such as the Black Belt, you could come up with some interesting conclusions (deserved or not).
posted by robtf3 at 4:55 PM on December 4, 2008 [3 favorites]

[a few comments removed - nothing personal folks but if everyone who found this creepy chimed in, the thread would fill up quick.]
posted by jessamyn at 5:38 PM on December 4, 2008