{"id":2669,"date":"2012-02-15T03:39:38","date_gmt":"2012-02-15T03:39:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/wordpress\/?p=2669"},"modified":"2017-05-18T01:36:08","modified_gmt":"2017-05-18T01:36:08","slug":"loving-and-the-legacy-of-unintended-consequences","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/?p=2669","title":{"rendered":"Loving and the Legacy of Unintended Consequences"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong><em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.researchgate.net\/publication\/265218010_Loving_and_the_Legacy_of_Unintended_Consequences\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Loving and the Legacy of Unintended Consequences<\/a><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/wisconsinlawreview.org\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Wisconsin Law Review<\/a><br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/wisconsinlawreview.org\/volume-2007-no-2\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">2007,\u00a0 Number 2<\/a><br \/>\nPages 241-281<\/p>\n<p><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.law.ucla.edu\/faculty\/all-faculty-profiles\/professors\/Pages\/rachel-moran.aspx\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Rachel F. Moran<\/a><\/strong>, Michael J. Connell Distinguished Professor of Law<br \/>\n<em>University of California, Los Angeles<\/em><\/p>\n<p><strong>Table of Contents<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>I. Introduction<\/li>\n<li>II. Making History Rest on Traditional Assumptions\n<ul>\n<li>A. The Significance of Race<\/li>\n<li>B. The Meaning of Marriage<\/li>\n<li>C. A Domestic Paradigm of Race and Intimacy<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>III. Undoing Traditional Assumptions: The Unintended Consequences of <em>Loving<\/em>\n<ul>\n<li>A. New Frontiers in Race: Multiracialism and Colorblind Segregation\n<ul>\n<li>1. The Mixed Promise of Multiracialism<\/li>\n<li>2. The Rise of Colorblind Segregation<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>B. New Paradigms of Intimacy: Same-Sex Marriage Advocacy and the Rise of Marriage-Minded Singlehood\n<ul>\n<li>1. The Same-Sex Marriage Movement<\/li>\n<li>2. Marriage-Minded Singlehood<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>C. From the Color Line to the International Border<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>IV. Conclusion<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Introduction<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>If it can take a decade for a person to appreciate the implications of a major life event, it can take even longer to realize the significance of a turning point in the history of a nation. Perhaps for that reason, we hold commemorative events like this one.\u00a0 An anniversary is an opportunity to reflect on a pivotal moment with distance and detachment and to weigh the consequences more fully than was possible at the time. On this fortieth anniversary of <em><a href=\"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/?p=415\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Loving v. Virginia<\/a><\/em>, perhaps what is most striking is that a case deemed pathbreaking in its day now seems to have taken so much for granted. \u00a0Because the United States Supreme Court interrogated the meaning of neither race nor marriage, <em>Loving<\/em> has been invoked in a number of later struggles in ways that might have taken the Justices by surprise. This result, of course, is part of the law of unintended consequences: the more that is left unexamined, the more likely that a fresh look will reveal implications beyond those originally contemplated.<\/p>\n<p>Here, I will explore <em>Loving\u2019s<\/em> unintended consequences by considering why the Court took so much for granted and how the opinion later was deployed in unexpected ways. After briefly examining the facts and holdings in the case, <strong>I will show that the Justices accepted monoracial categories as a given, despite evidence of multiracial complexity.<\/strong> The Court\u2019s treatment of race reflected the need to implement desegregation orders that turned on clearcut racial distinctions. The Justices also regarded marriage as a longstanding tradition. Already under attack for conjuring up unenumerated rights that did not appear in the Constitution, the Court was loath to suggest that marriage was anything other than an uncontroversial historical institution.<\/p>\n<p>Ironically, the Court\u2019s assumptions about race and marriage have been directly subverted by those who most openly lay claim to <em>Loving\u2019s<\/em> legacy. Proponents of multiracialism and advocates of same-sex marriage argue that their reform proposals are a natural outgrowth of the Court\u2019s conceptualization of freedom and equality. At the same time, <em>Loving\u2019s<\/em> subtler consequences have gone largely unaddressed. The case arguably ushered in a jurisprudential philosophy that treats colorblindness and ongoing segregation as compatible. In addition, the decision entrenched the primacy of marriage in the law\u2019s recognition of close personal relationships. Finally, <em>Loving<\/em> acquiesced in the presumption that romance happens only among Americans and so the decision has been of little import in dignifying and protecting the intimate attachments of noncitizens. Such a complex legacy demonstrates why a perfectly factual account of <em>Loving<\/em> simply will not do, and so it may take some time to appreciate the consequences.<\/p>\n<p>Read the entire article <a href=\"https:\/\/www.researchgate.net\/publication\/265218010_Loving_and_the_Legacy_of_Unintended_Consequences\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Here, I will explore Loving\u2019s unintended consequences by considering why the Court took so much for granted and how the opinion later was deployed in unexpected ways. After briefly examining the facts and holdings in the case, I will show that the Justices accepted monoracial categories as a given, despite evidence of multiracial complexity.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,459,1467,8,26,20],"tags":[70,866,7131,867],"class_list":["post-2669","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles","category-history","category-law","category-media-archive","category-politics","category-usa","tag-loving-v-virginia","tag-rachel-f-moran","tag-rachel-moran","tag-wisconsin-law-review"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2669","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2669"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2669\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":53965,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2669\/revisions\/53965"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2669"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2669"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2669"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}