N.J. Lawmakers Advance Bill To Codify Right To Interracial Marriage

By Dana DiFilippo, New Jersey Monitor

February 16, 2023

Fifty-six years after the U.S. Supreme Court struck down laws banning interracial marriage in the landmark case Loving v. Virginia, New Jersey legislators advanced a bill Thursday establishing a person’s right to marry anyone of any race.

While one critic ripped the bill as a solution in search of a problem, its sponsor, Assemblyman John McKeon (D-Essex), said last summer’s U.S. Supreme Court decision overturning abortion rights exposed the vulnerability of long-settled law on matters — like reproduction and marriage — that historically have been seen as private.

“If people here think that this legislation was intended to be thought-provoking, you’re right,” McKeon said. “We rushed, as we should have having the moral compass that this state does, to in our state enshrine reproductive freedom, access to contraception. We had already done it as it related to marriage equality. And so why shouldn’t we do the same as it relates to interracial marriage?”

McKeon credited a summer intern for bringing the idea to his attention. That former intern — Jordan Ortiz, 19, of Westfield — trekked to Trenton Thursday to testify before the Assembly’s judiciary committee in support of the bill, which would also apply to civil unions.

Jordan Ortiz, a sophomore studying political science at the University of Pennsylvania, suggested legislation codifying interracial marriage rights when he interned last summer for Assemblyman John McKeon (D-Essex). McKeon introduced such a bill in December, and Ortiz testified at the Statehouse on Feb. 16, 2023, to urge legislators to advance it. (Photo by Dana DiFilippo | New Jersey Monitor)

Ortiz pointed to Justice Clarence Thomas’ call in the abortion ruling known as Dobbs to revisit past precedents involving substantive due process, a legal doctrine that presumes the public is constitutionally protected from unwarranted government intrusion that infringes upon their fundamental rights.

“While a year ago this might have seemed unnecessary or even a fool’s errand, Justice Thomas’ recent claim that substantive due process should be outright eliminated necessitates such an unequivocal legislative response,” Ortiz said. “Interracial marriage as provided by Loving is not constitutionally enumerated but is nonetheless protected by the due process clause of the 14th Amendment and is thus placed under the very legal umbrella that a Supreme Court justice has openly threatened to eliminate.”

Ortiz is a sophomore studying political science at the University of Pennsylvania. But he’s got a personal stake in this too. He’s the child of an interracial marriage; his father is Puerto Rican, and his mother is a Ukrainian Ashkenazi Jew.

As his internship wound to a close last summer, Ortiz said McKeon invited his interns to offer their ideas for potential legislation. Ortiz pitched protecting interracial marriage, and McKeon introduced the bill in December.

Thomas “opened the door for so many different types of discriminatory legislation that can be drafted on state and local levels across the country,” Ortiz told the New Jersey Monitor after the committee meeting. “Interracial marriage is one of those judicial principles being threatened, so I think it’s best for us to be proactive and take the step forward.”

The bill had one detractor. John Tomicki of the League of American Families blasted it as a solution for “an illusion.”

“You’re raising a race issue where there is none,” Tomicki said.

The committee’s chair, Assemblyman Raj Mukherji (D-Hudson), countered: “However unlikely that the right to an interracial marriage would be threatened in this state, if you agree that such a prohibition would be immoral, what’s the harm in codifying that into state law?­­”

The committee then voted unanimously to advance the bill, which can now go to the full Assembly for a vote. It has no Senate companion.

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