Today marks the 44th Anniversary of Lovings vs. Virginia, the US Supreme Court decision that struck down a Virginia law outlawing interracial marriage. The case began in 1959, when Mildred and Richard Loving were caught sleeping in their bed by a group of police officers who had invaded their home in the hopes of finding them in the act of sex (another crime).
The couple was charged under Section 20-58 of the Virginia Code, which prohibited interracial couples from being married out of state and then returning to Virginia, and Section 20-59, which classified "miscegenation" as a felony, punishable by a prison sentence of between one and five years. The couple was sentenced to one year in prison, though the couple later received a 25 year suspension on their sentenced provided they leave the state of Virginia.
With the help of the ACLU, the Lovings challenged the case and on October 28, 1964, after their motion still had not been decided, the Lovings began a class action suit in the U.S District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia. On January 22, 1965, the three-judge district court decided to allow the Lovings to present their constitutional claims to the Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals. Virginia Supreme Court Justice Harry L. Carrico (later Chief Justice of the Court) wrote an opinion for the court upholding the constitutionality of the anti-miscegenation statutes and, after modifying the sentence, affirmed the criminal convictions.
Two years later The U.S. Supreme Court overturned the convictions in a unanimous decision, dismissing the Commonwealth of Virginia's argument that a law forbidding both white and black persons from marrying persons of another race. In its decision, the court wrote:
“Marriage is one of 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 statutes, 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 marry, a person of another race resides with the individual and cannot be infringed by the State.”
Despite this Supreme Court ruling, such laws remained on the books, although unenforceable, in several states until 2000, when Alabama became the last state to repeal its law against mixed-race marriage.
With our country’s history of bigotry and violence, the Lovings case proves that we cannot be neutral on topics of equality and civil rights. In the case of the Lovings, doing nothing meant accepting the injustices of 400 years of discrimination. It was only when the Supreme court pro-actively asserted the right of interracial couples to marry that the old Virginia laws were overturned.
In our day in which many of us realize the injustice of sexual discrimination, being neutral is also not enough. We cannot say, “It’s not my business what the gays do.”
We have to pro-actively assert our support.
In the words of Mildred Loving:
“I am still not a political person, but I am proud that Richard's and my name is on a court case that can help reinforce the love, the commitment, the fairness, and the family that so many people, black or white, young or old, gay or straight seek in life. I support the freedom to marry for all. That's what Loving, and loving, are all about.”
