Final Paper
☆。*。☆。 Marriage and Law: LGBTQ and Interracial Marital Disparities in America (1579) Racially and sexually, the white, cishet hegemon has rarely tolerated mixing in either category. By mixing between races or exploring sexuality, it destroys the foundations of power on which the dominant group stands. The citizenship of individual LGBTQ+ people have been in the hands of conservative lawmakers for many decades. Just now, we are seeing breakthroughs in the legislation that has kept many sexual and racial minorities on the sidelines. This paper explores how the notions of white “purity” and heteronormative ideals have plagued the sphere of marriage law for the past century, in turn justifying the anti-LGBTQ+ rhetoric of today. Previous anti-miscegenation laws and anti-miscegenation rhetoric in the Supreme Court reveal the ways in which white power is preserved and maintained both legally and socially. Courts often utilized “[g]enealogy, appearance, claims to identity, or that mystical q