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Activity
Mildred Jeter and her new husband, Richard Loving, returned to their home in Caroline County, Virginia. The newlyweds had recently taken their vows in nearby Washington, D.C. and were happy to begin their new life together as married couple. But there was a big obstacle to their marital bliss. The year was 1958, and Virginia was one of sixteen states that prohibited and punished interracial marriages. Mildred was African American and her husband Richard was Caucasian. Four months into their married life they were indicted by a grand jury.
The following January, the Lovings pleaded guilty to the charge and were sentenced to one year in jail. The trial judge agreed to suspend the sentence if the Lovings would leave the state for twenty-five years. The judge told Mr. and Mrs. Loving: "Almighty God created the races…and he placed them on separate continents…. The fact he separated the races shows that He did not intend for the races to mix."
The Lovings moved to Washington, D.C. and appealed their conviction on the grounds that Virginia law, The Racial Integrity Law of 1924, violated their rights to equal protection of the law and due process under the Fourteenth Amendment.
The Supreme Court ruled unanimously to overturn their conviction and strike down the Virginia law. The Court held, “There can be no doubt that restricting the freedom to marry solely because of racial classifications violates the central meaning of the Equal Protection Clause.” The Court also found that the Virginia law deprived the Lovings of liberty without due process of law. “The freedom to marry has long been recognized as one of the vital personal rights essential to the orderly pursuit of happiness by free men…. To deny this fundamental freedom on so unsupportable a basis as the racial classifications …is surely to deprive all the State's citizens of liberty without due process of law.”
Questions
- Why were the Lovings indicted and sentenced to a year in prison?
- Why did the Supreme Court find the Virginia’s Racial Integrity Act of 1924 unconstitutional?
- James Madison, called “Father of the Constitution” asserted that “Conscience is the most sacred property.” The Court held in Loving v. Virginia (1967) that “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.” How does the Loving v. Virginia decision support freedom of conscience?
- What relevance (if any) might Loving v. Virginia have to the current debate about gay marriage?
Answers
- The Lovings were indicted by a grand jury and sentenced to a year in prison because they got married in violation of a Virginia law, The Racial Integrity Act of 1924. This law prohibited and provided for punishment of interracial marriage. Mildred Jeter, an African American woman, married Richard Loving, a Caucasian man.
- The Supreme Court held that the Virginia law was unconstitutional because it violated citizens’ Fourteenth Amendment rights to equal protection of the law and due process. The Lovings had been denied equal protection of law and had their liberty restricted without due process of law when Virginia deprived them of the “fundamental freedom” of marriage based on racial qualifications.
- By striking down the law banning interracial marriage, the Supreme Court affirmed that the decision to marry someone of another race could not be interfered with by the state. The choice to marry someone who is of a different race is one that every individual is entitled to make without the government telling him or her that what the decision is wrong or illegal. The Court called freedom to marry a “vital personal right” that is “essential to…the pursuit of happiness.” By imposing racial qualifications on marriage, the government would be deciding what is right and wrong in an intensely personal matter – in effect taking away freedom of conscience.
- Some students will say that the Loving case does not pertain to the gay marriage debate, because the Loving case dealt strictly with racial qualifications, not qualifications of sexual orientation. They may point out that the Court worded its opinion to specifically refer to the racially discriminatory basis of the Virginia Act, and that calling those specific qualifications unconstitutional implies that there do exist supportable and therefore constitutional bases to restrict freedom of marriage. Other students will say that yes, the Loving decision pertains to the gay marriage debate and affirms a right of two people of the same sex to marry. They may point out the decisions calling marriage a “fundamental freedom” and “vital to the pursuit of happiness.” If race is not a supportable basis to restrict that liberty, they may say, then sexual orientation must not be either. They may also say that if laws which discriminate on the basis of race violate the Fourteenth Amendment, then laws which discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation violate the Fourteenth as well.
