It's important to note that Sewell comes from a generation of gay people who not only had to hide who they loved from the public, but then saw many of their friends die from a terrible disease that the government did little to prevent. The idea that gay people should have a right to be married is, to many people of Sewell's age both gay and straight, a very modern notion.

It's quite possible that one might have found an octogenarian Alabaman black man in 60s saying the same sorts of things about the mixing of races.