On appeal, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that criminalizing race sex did not violate the equality clause, as whites and non-whites would be punished equally for the offense of interracial sex. The court did not need to uphold the constitutionality of the interracial marriage ban, which was also part of Alabama`s anti-miscegenation law, since the plaintiff, Mr. Pace, had decided not to challenge that section of the law. According to Pace v. Alabama, the constitutionality of miscegenation laws prohibiting marriage and sexual relations between whites and non-whites remained unchallenged until the 1920s. [29] Interracial marriages were banned in Virginia in 1691. Interracialism: Black-White Intermarriage in American History, Literature and the Law, edited by Werner Sollors, examines the legal procedures of anti-miscegenation in this field. Under the Virginia Racial Integrity Act of 1924, only minorities can marry. But based on the U.S. Constitution, this policy violated the equal protection and due process provisions of the 14th Amendment, ultimately helping the Lovings win their case.

Nine years before going to the Supreme Court, the couple legally married in Washington, D.C. in 1958. They were sentenced to one year in prison for failing to comply with Virginia`s anti-miscegenation law and applying for an out-of-state marriage license. However, his sentence was suspended. Instead, they were ordered to leave Virginia and not return together for 25 years. They then moved to the District of Columbia for four years. But after a unanimous decision on June 12, 1967, the Supreme Court overturned the couple`s convictions by opposing Virginia`s anti-miscegenation policy. The Lovings have proven that unconditional love is worth fighting for. Despite the Supreme Court`s ruling, anti-miscegenation laws remained in force in several states, even though the ruling had rendered them unenforceable. Alabama state judges passed their anti-miscegenation law until 1970, when the Nixon administration obtained a U.S.

District Court ruling in United States v. Brittain. [40] [41] In 2000, Alabama was the last state to align its laws with the Supreme Court`s decision, when 60% of voters favored a constitutional amendment, Amendment 2, that removed anti-miscegenation language from the state constitution. [42] In addition to its impact on interracial marriage, Loving v. Virginia was also cited in later same-sex marriage trials. Richard Loving was killed in 1975 when a drunk driver crashed into the couple`s car in Caroline County. Mildred survived the crash and spent the rest of her life at Central Point. She died in 2008 after never remarried. This case raises a constitutional question that the Court never addressed: Does a Virginia law prohibiting marriages between persons solely on the basis of racial classifications violate the equal protection and due process provisions of the Fourteenth Amendment? [Note 1] For reasons that we believe reflect the centrality of these constitutional imperatives, we conclude that these regulations cannot be consistent with the Fourteenth Amendment. Richard, a white construction worker, and Mildred, a woman of mixed African-American and Native American ancestry, were longtime friends who had fallen in love. In June 1958, they exchanged vows in Washington, D.C., where interracial marriage was legal, and then returned to Virginia. By 1967, 16 states had yet to repeal anti-miscegenation laws prohibiting interracial marriage.

Mildred and Richard Loving were residents of one of these states, Virginia. They had fallen in love and wanted to get married. The Lovings began their legal battle in November 1963. With the help of Bernard Cohen and Philip Hirschkop, two young ACLU lawyers, the couple filed a motion asking Judge Bazile to overturn their convictions and sentences. There is, of course, no legitimate overriding aim which justifies this classification independently of abominable racial discrimination. The fact that Virginia only prohibits interracial marriages with white people shows that racial classifications must be justified as measures to maintain white supremacy. [Footnote 11] We have always denied the constitutionality of measures restricting citizens` rights on the basis of race. There is no doubt that restricting the freedom to marry solely on the basis of racial classifications violates the centrality clause. Philip Hirschkop, a civil rights lawyer in Virginia who recognized Mildred and Richard Loving in the 1967 Supreme Court decision Loving v.

Virginia, argues that antipathy toward interracial marriage plays a role in sending a seriously mentally ill black man to the Texas execution chamber. He hopes the Supreme Court will hear the case and “send a clear message that . Racial bigotry will not be tolerated. These features of Thomas` trial are a chilling echo of what was at stake in the Lovings case, where it became clear that the deep hatred of interracial marriage has roots in every other harmful aspect of racism – including those permeating our criminal justice system. In Obergefell v. Hodges (2015), the Supreme Court cited Loving, among others, as a precedent for its conclusion that states are required to allow same-sex marriage under the Constitution`s equality clause and due process clause. [3] The court`s decision in Obergefell cites Loving nearly a dozen times and is based on the same principles – equality and an unenumerated right to marriage. During the hearing, Justice Anthony Kennedy, subsequent author of the majority opinion, stated that the decision that racial segregation was unconstitutional and that the decision prohibiting interracial marriages was unconstitutional (Brown v. Board of Education in 1954 and Loving v.

Virginia in 1967), about 13 years apart, similar to the decision declaring prohibitions on same-sex sexual activity unconstitutional, and the final verdict, declaring bans on same-sex marriage unconstitutional. (Lawrence v. Texas in 2003 and Obergefell vs. Hodges in 2015). [63] In Kirby v. Kirby (1921), Mr. Kirby petitioned the State of Arizona to annul his marriage. He claimed that his marriage was invalid because his wife was of “” origin and therefore violated the state`s anti-miscegenation law. The Arizona Supreme Court ruled on Ms.

Kirby`s race based on her physical characteristics and determined that she was mixed-race, which is why Kirby`s annulment was granted. [30] After Loving v. Virginia, the number of interracial marriages continued to increase in the United States[43] and the South. In Georgia, for example, the number of interracial marriages increased from 21 in 1967 to 115 in 1970. [44] Nationally, 0.4% of marriages were interracial in 1960, 2.0% in 1980, 12% in 2013,[46] and 16% in 2015, nearly 50 years after Loving. [47] Lovers v.