Justices Upset All Bans On Interracial Marriage
June 13, 1967
The Supreme Court ruled unanimously today that states cannot outlaw marriages between whites and nonwhites. The opinion by Chief Justice Earl Warren was directed specifically at the antimiscegenation laws of Virginia, which had been challenged by Richard P. Loving, a white man, and his part-Negro, part-Indian wife, Mildred.
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``We have consistently denied the constitutionality of measures which restrict the rights of citizens on account of race,'' segregation laws to remain standing - those requiring separation of the races in marriage - Chief Justice Warren completed the process that he set in motion with his opinion in 1954 that declared segregation in public schools to be unconstitutional.
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Chief Justice Warren rejected the reasoning that had prompted the Supreme Court to uphold antimiscegenation legislation once before, when it considered the Alabama statute in 1883. The Court held then that the law did not discriminate against Negroes, since whites could be equally punished for violating it.
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In a footnote, Chief Justice Warren said that this quirk in the Virginia law does not save other antimiscengenation laws from being affected by today's ruling. The other states that have these laws are Alabama, Arkansas, Delaware, Florida, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas and West Virginia.
The Lovings are natives of Caroline County, near Richmond. They were married in the District of Columbia in 1958. When they returned to Virginia they were prosecuted under the antimiscegenation law, which allows a sentence of up to five years in prison.
http://partners.nytimes.com/library/national/race/061367race-ra.html
= new reply since forum marked as read
Too bad the four SCOTUS hard liners apparently do not see that these two cases are the same damned thing.
My regards.
