Cases That Made a Difference: Loving v Virginia

In 1958 a couple, whose domicile was Virginia, got married in the District of Columbia and then returned to Virginia where they were arrested several days later. Did they rob a bank? Did they kill someone? Why were they arrested? They were arrested because they broke a Virginia law that stated that blacks and whites could not cohabitate, have sex or marry. The anti-miscegenation statute in Virginia, known as the Racial Integrity Act of 1924, required that a racial description of every person be recorded at birth and made it a felony for whites marrying non-whites.

Facts: Mildred Jeter and Richard Perry Loving left the Commonwealth of Virginia to marry in the District of Columbia because of the ban on interracial marriages in Virginia. Upon their return to Virginia they were charged with violating the ban, pleaded guilty and were arrested and sentenced to one year in jail. However, the one year sentence was suspended for 25 years on the condition that the couple leave Virginia. The judge, at trial, proclaimed the following: "Almighty God created the races, white, black, yellow, Malay and red, and he placed them on separate continents. And but for the interference with his arrangement there would be no cause for such marriages. The fact that he separated the races shows that he did not intend for the races to mix." The Lovings moved to the District of Columbia and in 1963 started a series of lawsuits to overturn the conviction and used the Fourteenth Amendment as their foundation. The Fourteenth Amendment includes the Due Process and Equal Protection clauses. The case ultimately reached the Supreme Court and was decided on June 12, 1967.

Decision: The Court held that Virginia's anti-miscegenation statute, or the Racial Integrity Act of 1924 was unconstitutional. This decision then ended race-based legal restriction on marriage in the United States. The decision by the Court was unanimous and declared: "Marriage is the basic civil rights of man, fundamental to our very existence and survival. To deny this fundamental freedom on so unsupportable a basis as the racial classifications embodied in these statues, classifications so directly subversive of the principle of equality at the heart of the Fourteenth Amendment, is surely to deprive all the State's citizens of liberty without due process of law. The Fourteenth Amendment requires that the freedom of choice to marry not be restricted by invidious racial discrimination. Under our Constitution, the freedom to marry, or not to marry, a person of another race resides with the individual and cannot be infringed by the state."

To say that this case changed how marriage was viewed after the decision is an understatement. It forever changed the right to marry the person you love and the argument that the State should not interfere with that right. This case, more than any other, has been used to buttress the argument for gay marriage in the United States. The argument, while having its proponents, have many naysayers. The argument against is that there are no laws criminalizing same sex marriage. However, this issue, gay marriage, will not be decided anytime soon. The case is a precedent setting case and what that has changed how Americans think and view marriage. The debate continues but in a different context.