This is worth the 16 minutes of you life it will take to watch.
Basically what Brother Reagan is giving us is the old "separate but equal" argument, as applied to the mixing of the races in marriage (as opposed to mixing them in education). For those unfamiliar with concept of "separate but equal", this is what some misguided folks used as logic when arguing for public school segregation decades ago. The theory was that no harm was done in having separate schools as long as the black and white children (I don't know what they did with the yellow, red, and other colors) had schools that were basically the same. Of course the flaw in this logic was so large that you could drive Hummer (an H1, not those smaller ones) through it: the schools for white kids were far better funded, resourced and the like than those for black kids. Yes, they were separate, but they never were in fact equal, and the argument was really just a thin disguise for "we don't like those folks".
Fast forward to now, and Brother Reagan is again using the "separate but equal" argument to apparently protect American society from the evils of interracial marriage that produces *gasp* hordes of mulatto children. After having watched Brother Reagan's rant twice (and reading a transcript of it, where the word mulatto appears a dozen + times), I still can't figure out what's actually wrong with mulatto children, but maybe that's besides the point. I'll get to what I think the actual point is in a moment. It does seem as if, in Brother Reagan's world, there aren't very many things worse than a mulatto child. Me? Heck, I think that all children are wonderful. It's when they turn into adults that things get messed up.
Now is Brother Reagan a racist? Well I can't answer that with 100% certainty because, in fact, I don't know Brother Reagan; all I've seen is one mildly sweaty clip from YouTube. For all I know this could be some glorified act. In the video he does claim to be staunchly non-racist, well as long as the races don't "do the nasty" and produce those hordes of mulatto children. Of course his argument about not being a racist doesn't really hold water, as I've heard many an authentic, sheet wearing Klansman proclaim that "I'm not a racist, I just want black and white people to be separate for the benefit of both". Brother Reagan isn't treading new ground here; he's simply reading a dialogue page that's well worn in American history.
So what is the point to all of this? Call me crazy, but I don't really think Brother Reagan's seemingly racist rant is the issue here; rather, I think this is really just about control. Ponder this for a moment: being able to tell someone who they can or can't (or should vs shouldn't) marry is a pretty powerful chunk of influence over the lives of adults. Brother Reagan uses uses his interpretation of the Bible to do just that, and in that respect he's hardly engaging in novel behavior, as this something that religion has been doing for, well, as long as there has been religion. Sometimes this is a good thing, as in "don't kill people"; in the case of Brother Reagan, well, I'm not so sure it falls into the good category. In any event, Brother Reagan is sure not pulling any punches when it comes to his desire to control the intimate lives of others. Oh, and he's also implying that a child can be somehow defective because of the color of his/her skin. Pick your poison, any of this (or even the whole racist angle) is pretty disturbing.
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