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When the Supreme Court opinion on marriage came down, the language was simple and unequivocal: "The freedom to marry has long been recognized as one of the vital personal rights essential to the orderly pursuit of happiness by free men. Under our Constitution, the freedom to marry, or not marry... cannot be infringed by the State."

The decision was greeted joyfully by many and with horror by some, especially in the South. There were complaints of federal government overreach, of a few black-robed justices stepping in to overturn laws that reflected the overwhelming will of the people in the affected states. And there was a predictable turn to Scripture — it was God's business to decide who could marry whom.

If all of this sounds like a summary of last week's high court approval of same-sex marriage, one should note the year of the decision and its author — Earl Warren in 1967. The decision in Loving v. Virginia declared that laws forbidding interracial marriage violated the 14th Amendment's equal protection clause.

At the time, 16 states had laws preventing a white person from taking a spouse of a different race. But over the course of U.S. history, all the states save nine outlawed it at one time or another. Even with the civil rights movement in full swing, public opinion polls showed just 20 percent of the American public approved of interracial marriage.

That meant no shortage of segregationists who agreed with the opinion of Judge Leon Bazile, who had presided over the trial of Richard and Mildred Loving in Virginia?

"Almighty God created the races white, black, yellow, Malay and red, and he placed them on separate continents," Bazile wrote. "The fact that he separated the races shows that he did not intend for the races to mix."

Almost a half century later, the Supreme Court's opinion allowing people of the same sex to legally wed caught few by surprise. In June 2013, two years earlier to the day, it had signaled the majority's feelings on the matter by striking down the federal Defense of Marriage Act. That decision did not address state laws, but the court's reasoning was used by dozens of lower-court judges to overturn such bans imposed by legislatures and public referenda.

When the decision was announced, marriage traditionalists, evangelicals, and a large portion of Republican Party leaders responded with a coordinated message crafted well in advance. Allowing homosexuals to marry not only thwarts the overwhelming will of the people, they said, but it could infringe on the free exercise of religion by forcing public servants to do something in violation of their beliefs. Judicial tyranny, they called it.

"The Supreme Court has taken it upon themselves, by the margin on one vote, to create law and override the will of the people of 14 states," Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick said in a prepared statement.
Patrick had already asked Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton for an opinion "to provide guidance to county clerks and Justices of the Peace who face this conflict of conscience" when it came to issuing marriage licenses or performing ceremonies involving same-sex couples. Paxton dutifully responded with an opinion saying that such public officials could refuse to perform the duties of their office if doing so conflicted with their religious beliefs and there are others available.

Paxton's opinion, which was denounced by gay rights groups and others as political pandering, did not address whether such public employees could make a similar claim of religious infringement if they objected on religious grounds to, say, interracial or interfaith marriages. State Sen. Rodney Ellis, a Houston Democrat, asked where such reasoning could lead, wondering whether a state district judge could decline to enter a death sentence in a capital case if his religious beliefs opposed it.

Ted Cruz, the GOP presidential candidate and U.S. senator from Texas, said the comparison to other issues is bogus. "There's no religious backing for that," he said when asked whether a clerk could refuse to issue a marriage license to an interracial couple.

Conservative politicians, organizations and religious leaders bristled at the comparison when it was brought up last week. Focus on the Family's Glenn Stanton said the Loving decision "struck down a legal regime... that was wholly racist at its core." Homosexuality was different, they said. It was not a sin to be one race or another.

But history tells a different story. The use of religion and Scripture to support segregationist views and a belief in white supremacy had a long history in the American South, just as they had in justifying slavery. Marriage was not exempt.

Nationally known evangelist Bob Jones, a pioneer in radio broadcasting who established his own college in South Carolina, was one of many in the clergy who felt separation of the races was God's will, and that such separation obviously extended to marriage. Students at Bob Jones University were not even allowed to date outside their race until 2000.

Jones explained his thinking in an April 1960 radio broadcast, asserting that several chapters of Acts lay down the truth. Although the language of the text referred to boundaries and nations, the real meaning was not ever-changing legal borders but the race of those living there, he said.

"God Almighty did not make the human race one race," said Jones, who denied accusations of racism. "It was not His purpose at all.... God made one blood of all nations, but He also drew boundary lines between races. If you are against segregation and against racial separation, then you are against God almighty."

Opposition to interracial marriage did not draw the sort of publicity that Gov. George Wallace's defiant stand against school integration did. With relatively few such marriages, the court's decision had marginal practical impact at the time. It largely disappeared as a topic for public discussion. "Mixed" marriages became less remarkable even though they remained relatively small in number.

Yet when the Loving decision was announced seven years after Jones' broadcast, it was far from universally praised. Few churches in the South, and perhaps just as few evangelical churches elsewhere, supported interracial marriage at the time, and all cited a Scriptural basis. Even Harry Truman, who desegregated the U.S. military while president, referred to his religious beliefs when describing his personal opposition to interracial marriage.

"I don't believe in it," Truman told a reporter in 1963. "The Lord created it that way. You read your Bible and you'll find out."

Many Americans still feel that way. But how many? It's a difficult question to answer, as few openly acknowledge that a racially mixed marriage makes them uncomfortable or is wrong. An opinion poll by Pew Research in 2011 showed that 16 percent of white evangelicals still do not approve of interracial marriage, but the number could be much higher.

"The strong emotional... opposition to interracial marriage that much of the white population, both in the North and in the South, brought into the 20th century undoubtedly continues to exert a powerful influence on whites within the church even today," explained J. Daniel Hayes, Ouachita Baptist University's dean of Christian Studies, in a 2009 scholarly article on the Biblical case for interracial marriage.

A symbolic debate in the 1990s to finally remove the interracial marriage ban in South Carolina, which had become moot after the Loving decision, was still a matter of controversy, as several lawmakers said the law was rooted in Scripture. State Rep. Lanny Littlejohn opined, "That's not what God intended when he separated the races back in the Babylonian days." Other legislators agreed, citing one Bible verse or another, though the law was removed.

Alabama became the last state to formally repeal its anti-miscegenation law, via public vote in 2000, but 41 percent voted against doing so. Likewise, in a 2011 poll, 46 percent of Republican voters in Mississippi, an overwhelmingly Republican state, said they believe interracial marriage should still be illegal.

As the American population increases in diversity and older generations pass away, that appears likely to change. The question of interracial dating or marriage is rarely asked by pollsters, but if recent polling about same-sex marriage is any indication, social attitudes are undergoing a fundamental shift. About 75 percent of people 18 to 34 express approval of marriage equality gays and lesbians. It's also worth noting that younger generations also are less attracted to mainstream Christian denominations, and churchgoing in general, than ever before.

That does not mean that those who are opposed to it will go quietly. And in that opposition is one thing that strongly echoes the segregationist past — an impassioned call for defiance.

Cruz suggested that states that were not a party to the case the high court heard were not legally bound to follow the ruling. They could simply pay no attention to it. Technicalities aside, most legal experts are skeptical that judges around the country will choose to ignore the binding case law of a Supreme Court decision. But the few that might, opponents hope, could help build a momentum that might spread.

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