On Monday's Anderson Cooper 360, Jeffrey Toobin maintained that the comparison between bans on interracial marriage and gay marriage is “exactly a parallel situation.”
After Cooper asked whether officials, in a hypothetical situation, could deny licenses to interracial couples if they had a religious objection, Toobin asserted: “Ted Cruz was asked that exact question today by Savannah Guthrie on the Today show and he ducked it.” Cooper lamely opined that “of course” Cruz would duck the question. Neither Toobin or Cooper deemed it worthy to mention that Cruz is the product of an interracial marriage.
Toobin claimed that the reason why opponents of the gay marriage ruling duck the interracial marriage comparison is because they fear appearing bigoted:
[T]he opponents of the Supreme Court decision don't want to answer that question because interracial marriage is now so accepted in our society and so recognized as something that only, you know, really bigoted people oppose. They don't want to draw the parallel, but the parallel is precise.
Cooper, in an effort to justify Toobin’s reasoning, said that the two are precisely parallel because the logic used by the Court in Loving v. Virginia, equal protection, was the same logic used by Justice Kennedy in the gay marriage decision. Toobin agreed, saying the decisions were “precisely” the same thing.
Toobin has often been hostile to opponents of gay marriage. After the decision on June 26, the CNN personality admitted that he celebrates gay rights victories. On the same day, Toobin moaned about Justice Scalia’s behavior on the bench, calling him the ‘get off my lawn’ justice and making charges of bigotry against the Reagan appointee.
The relevant portion of the transcript:
CNN's Anderson Cooper 360
June 29, 2015ANDERSON COOPER: We should also just point out, this is not churches being forced to marry gay people against their teachings. This is, this is the county. This is the state. This is a completely secular office.
JEFFREY TOOBIN: And another way of thinking about this whole issue is that, in 1967, the Supreme Court said that interracial marriages had to be allowed. And the justification.
COOPER: And the did it based on equal protection.
TOOBIN: Very same. The Loving decision, the 1967 – it’s cited repeatedly in Justice Kennedy's opinion last week. And a lot of the same justifications were used for banning interracial marriage. That God didn't intend for the races to marry. And there was a lot of objection. In fact, public opinion polls were more opposed to interracial marriage than they are opposed to same-sex marriage today. But the Court was very clear that this is now the law of the land and people had to comply.
COOPER: Well, using that argument though, could then, based on what the Texas attorney general said, could, if that woman decided she didn't like interracial marriages – obviously she has not taken that position – but if a public official says I don’t like interracial marriages, it goes against my religious beliefs, my reading the Bible, can I ignore the Supreme Court ruling on this?
TOOBIN: Ted Cruz was asked that exact question today by Savannah Guthrie on the Today show and he ducked it.
COOPER: Well, of course, yeah.
TOOBIN: Because it’s exactly a parallel situation. And they don’t want to – the opponents of the Supreme Court decision don't want to answer that question because interracial marriage is now so accepted in our society and so recognized as something that only, you know, really bigoted people oppose. They don't want to draw the parallel, but the parallel is precise.
COOPER: It's precise because the ruling by the Supreme Court back in '67 in Loving v. Virginia, it's the same idea, it was used to justify the Supreme Court ruling this time.
TOOBIN: Precisely.
COOPER: Equal protection under the law.
