The case that finally did away with the anti-miscegenation laws was Loving v. Virginia -- the best-named legal case ever, according to Lambda attorney Evan Wolfson. Richard Loving, a white man, married Mildred Jeter, a black woman, in Washington, DC, in 1958. When they moved back to Virginia, their home state, they were arrested and prosecuted for interracial marriage. A Virginia court found them guilty and exiled them from the state for 25 years -- a somewhat lenient sentence, given that they had faced up to five years in prison. They appealed to the Supreme Court, which in 1967 overturned the law against interracial marriage.

Today gay- and lesbian-rights activists argue that same-sex couples face many of the same barriers that interracial couples faced 30 years ago. And drawing parallels to the interracial-marriage debate, the activists say, is one way of winning public support.

Last month, when the House of Representatives was debating the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) -- which easily passed, by a vote of 342 to 67 -- US Representative John Lewis (D-Georgia), an African-American, compared the homophobia surrounding DOMA to the racism of the 1950s and '60s.

"This is a mean bill," said Lewis. "It is cruel. . . . Marriage is a basic human right. You cannot tell people they cannot fall in love. . . . I have known bigotry. This bill stinks of the same fear, hatred, and intolerance. . . . It should be called the Defense of Mean-Spirited Bigots act."

-- TW