General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsJust watched the movie Loving; makes me angry every time I think of what people had to live with.
Loving v. Virginia, 388 U.S. 1 (1967), was a landmark civil rights decision of the U.S. Supreme Court in which the Court ruled that laws banning interracial marriage violate the Equal Protection and Due Process Clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.[1][2] The decision was followed by an increase in interracial marriages in the U.S. and is remembered annually on Loving Day. It has been the subject of several songs and three movies, including the 2016 film Loving. Beginning in 2013, it was cited as precedent in U.S. federal court decisions holding restrictions on same-sex marriage in the United States unconstitutional, including in the 2015 Supreme Court decision Obergefell v. Hodges.[3]
The case involved Mildred Loving, a woman of color,[note 1] and her white husband Richard Loving, who in 1958 were sentenced to a year in prison for marrying each other. Their marriage violated Virginia's Racial Integrity Act of 1924, which criminalized marriage between people classified as "white" and people classified as "colored". The Lovings appealed their conviction to the Supreme Court of Virginia, which upheld it. They then appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, which agreed to hear their case.
On June 12, 1967, the Court issued a unanimous decision in the Lovings' favor and overturned their convictions. Its decision struck down Virginia's anti-miscegenation law and ended all race-based legal restrictions on marriage in the United States. Virginia had argued that its law was not a violation of the Equal Protection Clause because the punishment was the same regardless of the offender's race, and thus it "equally burdened" both whites and non-whites.[4] The Court found that the law nonetheless violated the Equal Protection Clause because it was based solely on "distinctions drawn according to race" and outlawed conductnamely, getting marriedthat was otherwise generally accepted and which citizens were free to do.[4]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loving_v._Virginia
Virginia was not for Lovers, as it's motto does NOT say.
Response to elleng (Original post)
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BComplex
(8,092 posts)North Carolina neighbors know this.
captain queeg
(10,303 posts)We still have a long way to go but the changes that have taken place since the 60s are really amazing.
elleng
(131,412 posts)The River
(2,615 posts)in a single lifetime. Societies evolve over generations.
Renew Deal
(81,900 posts)Its very good and I recommend it to people here, though it is maddening to know the lengths that people will go to advance racism. Things have only gotten better because people have forced them to get better. There are people in this country that would still promote laws like the one in VA if they could.
elleng
(131,412 posts)'There are people in this country that would still promote laws like the one in VA if they could.'
Behind the Aegis
(54,064 posts)Mrs. Loving was supportive of marriage equality for gay men and lesbians! She was a really inspiring and incredible woman.