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The Federal Court in Alexandria, Virginia, on Friday, October 4, is considering an old law that forces state residents to declare their "race" to obtain a marriage certificate.
With our correspondent in the United States , Anne Corpet
In Virginia , according to the districts, the proposed choices diverge: 230 breed categories have been identified. In Rockbrige County, it is possible to check the " Aryan " or " Octavon " boxes , for those who have one eighth of black blood.
Following the complaint of a couple, the state attorney issued a derogation: the future spouses can marry without having to declare their race. But their lawyer, Victor Glasberg, did not abandon the lawsuits. It requires the repeal of the text, which dates from segregation.
A marriage conditioned by categories
To obtain a marriage certificate, you must choose a category, depending on the origin of your parents and grandparents. " Marriage is a right. So we can not impose on this right, the condition to identify according to categories, "denounces the lawyer.
The man behind all this according to him: the physicist and white supremacist Walter Plecker. " In 1943 he wrote that his genealogical research on" Whites "was better than Hitler's on Jews, " says Glasberg.
This requirement to check a box according to race is also present in seven other US states: Connecticut, Delaware, Kentucky, Louisiana, Minnesota, New Hampshire and Alabama.
A law born at the time of segregation
In all, three couples decided to file a complaint in the state of Virginia, after being denied the issuance of a marriage certificate, as they did not wish to check the boxes corresponding to any race.
For them, this constraint is unconstitutional and especially the reflection of a racist past . Their lawyer, Victor Glasberg, these categories must disappear. " It must be kept in history and in museums. But that has no place in the laws of a modern state . "
This Friday, October 4, Victor Glasberg will plead in Virginia Federal Court.