Historical trivia! Among the ten U.S. states to have never enacted anti-miscegenation laws: Connecticut, New Hampshire, and Vermont, and the District of Columbia (technically not a state but whatever). Among the ten states to first overturn anti-miscegenation laws: Iowa, Massachusetts, and Maine. In other news...
That ain't trivia, Baby!
I just wanted to say, [Mr Deasey] said. Ireland, they say, has the honour of being the only country which never persecuted the jews. Do you know that? No. And do you know why?
…
Because she never let them in.
- Ulysses
That is not true. Dublin had a Jewish mayor before New York City did.
Well, LaGuardia, whose mother was Jewish, served a good twenty years before Briscoe, but it depends how you want to score that.
True tale: I used to live next door to Chaim Herzog's childhood home in Dub, "around the corner" from where Leopold Bloom grew up. Joyce was pretty well-aware of the history of the Jews in Ireland. Deasy's role is that of oaf and buffoon bloviating misinformation.
LaGuardia was an Episcopalian, everyone knows that.
Of course as an analogy to whiter states not being especially concerned with miscegenation it is apt. But then all comparisons break down if we assume that these are not also especially straight states.