Life Without Interracial Marriage
Life Without Fair Courts Editorial Cartoon Series by Mikhaela Reid
Loving v. Virginia, 388 U.S. 1 (1967)
Plaintiff: the Commonwealth of Virginia
Defendants: Richard Loving and Mildred Jeter
Issue: Can a state criminalize two consenting adults entering in marriage when they are of different races?
Case Summary
An interracial different-sex couple living in Virginia, married in neighboring Washington, D.C., and were subsequently indicted and pled guilty to violating Virginia's anti-miscegenation laws. After leaving Virginia as required by their sentences, the couple filed a motion to declare the state's anti-miscegenation laws unconstitutional. The case worked its way to the U.S. Supreme Court which struck down Virginia's anti-miscegenation law and 16 other state laws like it across the country because they violated constitutional principles of equal protection and due process. Chief Justice Warren wrote in his majority opinion: "The freedom to marry has long been recognized as one of the vital personal rights essential to the orderly pursuit of happiness . . ."
At the time that the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Loving that there is a fundamental right to marry a person of one’s choice, there was no shared understanding of marriage in America that encompassed interracial couples, much like today when many people are only beginning to understand and accept marriage equality for same-sex couples. (See Lambda Legal’s brief to the New York Court of Appeals about marriage equality). Of course, analogies between same-sex couples being denied marriage equality and the uniquely appalling discrimination faced by racial minorities in our nation's history are not exact. However, Loving set important precedent in the area of fundamental principles of equality.
