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parties in favor and against interracial marriage cite the Bible in their arguments. Perhaps one of the most important cases against miscegenation, the overturning of miscegenation laws, and one of the court cases most grounded in Christianity is Loving v. Virginia.
In Christianity, the [[Bible ]] is God’s Word. There isn’t a single place within all sixty-six books that condemn people from marrying
a person of another skin color for racial reasons. There are figures in the Bible who actually did marry outside their race.The first laws against interracial marriage came about during the colonial period. A colony in Maryland in 1661 passed miscegenation laws because there were many cases of intermarriage between white female servants and African American slaves. The laws came about because people were wondering how to classify and what to do with the offspring from these relationships. Many people were confused with these children’s standing in society. The myth of white racism being pure has been an idea in existence supported by slave societies and thus far it has survived hundreds of years to support the hierarchy that the state of Virginia, in the Loving v. Virginia case tried to maintain. Miscegenation laws had been upheld because they were supposedly based on the “laws of God and the laws of property, morality and social order…[that] have been exercised by all civilized governments in all ages of the world (Interracialism).” Virginia had declared miscegenation laws valid because they were “natural law which forbids their intermarriage and the social amalgamation which leads to a corruption of races is as clearly divine as that which imparted them to different natures (Interracialism).” Richard Loving, a white man, married Mildred Jeter, part African American and part Native American, in 1958 in Washington D.C. Although they were natives of Virginia, the Lovings were married in Washington D.C., where interracial marriage was legal, in order to escape the miscegenation laws in place in Virginia.
[[Deuteronomy]]'''''' 7:3: “‘Do not intermarry with them. Do not give your daughters to their sons or take their daughters for your sons.’”
God gave this command because when the Israelites moved into Canaan, they would be surrounded by neighbors who worshipped other things and not the Lord. Skin color had nothing to do with it. There are even a couple key figures who married interracially: Moses and Solomon. Exodus 2: 21: “Moses agreed to stay with the man who gave his daughter Zipporah to Moses in marriage. 1st Kings 11:1-2: “King Solomon, however, loved many foreign women besides Pharoah’s daughter-Moabites, Ammonites, Edomites, Sidonians and Hittites. They were from the nations about which the Lord had told the Israelites ‘You must not marry with them, because they will surely turn your hearts after their gods.’ Nevertheless, Solomon held fast to them in love.” Let's look at Moses' situation first. Zipporah was a Cushite, a person descended from the area which is now modern-day Sudan. Even Moses’ own siblings, Miriam and Aaron were against his marriage to her and opposed him in Numbers 12. But this is a parallel link to Christianity: God’s love sees past all skin color. He did create people with diverse skin tones. Next, let's go visit Solomon, the 3rd king of Israel. Chapter 11, Verse 3 of 1st Kings says that Solomon had '''700''' wives! All of them came from across the ancient world. It is likely that the reason Solomon had som so many wives was to solidify alliances he made with other nations. Solomon's downfall (1st Kings 11:9-13) was not because of his wives' skin color but because their religious practices.
Although many argue, through Biblical means, the interracial marriage is wrong. H owever, the Bible bans interracial marriage for religious reasons, not reasons based on skin color. In Loving v. Virginia, the court made the right decision in overturning the miscegenation laws and in doing so stayed true to the religion the nation was founded on: Christianity.
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