Loving v. Virginia: Difference between revisions
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==Key precedents== |
==Key precedents== |
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Prior to '' |
Prior to ''Niggers vs Crackers, there were several cases on the subject of race-mixing. In ''[[Pace v. Alabama]]'' (1883), the Supreme Court ruled that the conviction of an Alabama couple for interracial sex, affirmed on appeal by the Alabama Supreme Court, did not violate the [[Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution|Fourteenth Amendment]]. Interracial extramarital sex was deemed a felony, whereas extramarital sex ("adultery or fornication") was only a misdemeanor. On appeal, the United States Supreme Court ruled that the criminalization of interracial sex was not a violation of the [[equal protection clause]] because whites and non-whites were punished in equal measure for the offense of engaging in interracial sex. The court did not need to affirm the constitutionality of the ban on interracial marriage that was also part of Alabama's anti-miscegenation law, since the plaintiff, Mr. Pace, had chosen not to appeal that section of the law. After ''Pace v. Alabama'', the constitutionality of [[anti-miscegenation laws]] banning marriage and sex between whites and non-whites remained unchallenged until the 1920s. |
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In ''[[Kirby v. Kirby]]'' (1921), Mr. Kirby asked the state of Arizona for an annulment of his marriage. He charged that his marriage was invalid because his wife was of ‘negro’ descent, thus violating the state's anti-miscegenation law. The Arizona Supreme Court judged Mrs. Kirby’s race by observing her physical characteristics and determined that she was of mixed race, therefore granting Mr. Kirby’s annulment.<ref name=Pascoe_pp49-51>{{harvnb|Pascoe|1996|pp=49–51}}</ref> |
In ''[[Kirby v. Kirby]]'' (1921), Mr. Kirby asked the state of Arizona for an annulment of his marriage. He charged that his marriage was invalid because his wife was of ‘negro’ descent, thus violating the state's anti-miscegenation law. The Arizona Supreme Court judged Mrs. Kirby’s race by observing her physical characteristics and determined that she was of mixed race, therefore granting Mr. Kirby’s annulment.<ref name=Pascoe_pp49-51>{{harvnb|Pascoe|1996|pp=49–51}}</ref> |
Revision as of 18:51, 4 April 2011
Loving v. Virginia | |
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Argued April 10, 1967 Decided June 12, 1967 | |
Full case name | Richard Perry Loving, Mildred Jeter Loving v. Virginia |
Citations | 388 U.S. 1 (more) 87 S. Ct. 1817; 18 L. Ed. 2d 1010; 1967 U.S. LEXIS 1082 |
Argument | Oral argument |
Case history | |
Prior | Defendants convicted, Caroline County Circuit Court (January 6, 1959); motion to vacate judgment denied, Caroline County Circuit Court (January 22, 1959); affirmed in part, reversed and remanded, 147 S.E.2d 78 (Va. 1966) |
Holding | |
The Court declared Virginia's anti-miscegenation statute, the "Racial Integrity Act of 1924", unconstitutional, thereby ending all race-based legal restriction on marriage in the United States. | |
Court membership | |
| |
Case opinions | |
Majority | Warren, joined by unanimous |
Concurrence | Stewart |
Laws applied | |
U.S. Const. amend. XIV; Va. Code §§ 20-58, 20-59 |
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/4c/Wikisource-logo.svg/38px-Wikisource-logo.svg.png)
Loving v. Virginia, 388 U.S. 1 (1967),[1] was a landmark civil rights case in which the United States Supreme Court, by a 9-0 vote, declared Virginia's anti-miscegenation statute, the "Racial Integrity Act of 1924", unconstitutional, thereby overturning Pace v. Alabama (1883) and ending all race-based legal restrictions on marriage in the United States.
Facts
The plaintiffs, Mildred Loving (née Mildred Delores Jeter, a woman of African and Rappahannock Native American descent, July 22, 1939 – May 2, 2008)[2][3][4] and Richard Perry Loving (a white man, October 29, 1933 – June 1975),[5] were residents of the Commonwealth of Virginia who had been married in June 1958 in the District of Columbia, having left Virginia to evade the Racial Integrity Act, a state law banning marriages between any white person and any non-white person. Upon their return to Caroline County, Virginia, they were charged with violation of the ban. They 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). In their defense, Mrs. Loving had pointed to a marriage certificate on the wall in their bedroom; rather than defending them, it became the evidence the police needed for a criminal charge, because it proved they had been married in another state. Specifically, they were 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. On January 6, 1959, the Lovings pleaded guilty and were sentenced to one year in prison, with the sentence suspended for 25 years on condition that the couple leave the state of Virginia. The trial judge in the case, Leon M. Bazile, echoing Johann Friedrich Blumenbach's 18th-century interpretation of race, proclaimed that
Almighty God created the races white, black, yellow, malay and red, and he placed them on separate continents. And but for the interference with his arrangement there would be no cause for such marriages. The fact that he separated the races shows that he did not intend for the races to mix.
The Lovings moved to the District of Columbia, and on November 6, 1963, the American Civil Liberties Union filed a motion on their behalf in the state trial court to vacate the judgment and set aside the sentence on the grounds that the violated statutes ran counter to the Fourteenth Amendment. This set in motion a series of lawsuits which ultimately reached the Supreme Court. 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.
Ignoring United States Supreme Court precedent, Carrico cited as authority the Virginia Supreme Court's own decision in Naim v. Naim (1955), also arguing that the case at hand was not a violation of the Fourteenth Amendment Equal Protection Clause because both the white and the non-white spouse were punished equally for the crime of miscegenation, an argument similar to that made by the United States Supreme Court in 1883 in Pace v. Alabama.
In 1966, the Presbyterian Church took a stand, stating that they did not condemn or prohibit interracial marriages. The church found "no theological grounds for condemning or prohibiting marriage between consenting adults merely because of racial origin".[6] In that same year, the Unitarian Universalist Association declared that "laws which prohibit, inhibit or hamper marriage or cohabitation between persons because of different races, religions, or national origins should be nullified or repealed."[7] Months before the Supreme Court ruling on Loving v. Virginia the Roman Catholic Church joined the movement, supporting interracial couples in their struggle for recognition of their right to marriage.[citation needed]
Key precedents
Prior to Niggers vs Crackers, there were several cases on the subject of race-mixing. In Pace v. Alabama (1883), the Supreme Court ruled that the conviction of an Alabama couple for interracial sex, affirmed on appeal by the Alabama Supreme Court, did not violate the Fourteenth Amendment. Interracial extramarital sex was deemed a felony, whereas extramarital sex ("adultery or fornication") was only a misdemeanor. On appeal, the United States Supreme Court ruled that the criminalization of interracial sex was not a violation of the equal protection clause because whites and non-whites were punished in equal measure for the offense of engaging in interracial sex. The court did not need to affirm the constitutionality of the ban on interracial marriage that was also part of Alabama's anti-miscegenation law, since the plaintiff, Mr. Pace, had chosen not to appeal that section of the law. After Pace v. Alabama, the constitutionality of anti-miscegenation laws banning marriage and sex between whites and non-whites remained unchallenged until the 1920s.
In Kirby v. Kirby (1921), Mr. Kirby asked the state of Arizona for an annulment of his marriage. He charged that his marriage was invalid because his wife was of ‘negro’ descent, thus violating the state's anti-miscegenation law. The Arizona Supreme Court judged Mrs. Kirby’s race by observing her physical characteristics and determined that she was of mixed race, therefore granting Mr. Kirby’s annulment.[8]
In the Monks case (Estate of Monks, 4. Civ. 2835, Records of California Court of Appeals, Fourth district), the Superior Court of San Diego County in 1939 decided to invalidate the marriage of Marie Antoinette and Allan Monks because she was deemed to have "one eighth negro blood". The court case involved a legal challenge over the conflicting wills that had been left by the late Allan Monks, an old one in favor of a friend named Ida Lee and a newer one in favor of his wife. Lee's lawyers charged that the marriage of the Monkses, which had taken place in Arizona, was invalid under Arizona state law because Marie Antoinette was "a Negro" and Alan had been white. Despite conflicting testimony by various expert witnesses, the judge defined Mrs. Monks' race by relying on the anatomical "expertise" of a surgeon. The judge ignored the arguments of an anthropologist and a biologist that it was impossible to tell a person's race from physical characteristics.[9]
Monks then challenged the Arizona anti-miscegenation law itself, taking her case to the California Court of Appeals, Fourth District. Monks's lawyers pointed out that the anti-miscegenation law effectively prohibited Monks as a mixed-race person from marrying anyone: "As such, she is prohibited from marrying a negro or any descendant of a negro, a Mongolian or an Indian, a Malay or a Hindu, or any descendants of any of them. Likewise ... as a descendant of a negro she is prohibited from marrying a Caucasian or a descendant of a Caucasian...." The Arizona anti-miscegenation statute thus prohibited Monks from contracting a valid marriage in Arizona, and was therefore an unconstitutional constraint on her liberty. The court, however, dismissed this argument as inapplicable, because the case presented involved not two mixed-race spouses but a mixed-race and a white spouse: "Under the facts presented the appellant does not have the benefit of assailing the validity of the statute."[10] Dismissing Monks' appeal in 1942, the United States Supreme Court refused to reopen the issue.
The turning point came with Perez v. Sharp (1948), also known as Perez v. Lippold. In Perez, the Supreme Court of California recognized that interracial bans on marriage violated the Fourteenth Amendment of the Federal Constitution.
Decision
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, and providing identical penalties to white and black violators, could not be construed as racially discriminatory. The court ruled that Virginia's anti-miscegenation statute violated both the Due Process Clause and the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. 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.
The Supreme Court concluded that anti-miscegenation laws were racist and had been enacted to perpetuate white supremacy:
There is patently no legitimate overriding purpose independent of invidious racial discrimination which justifies this classification. The fact that Virginia prohibits only interracial marriages involving white persons demonstrates that the racial classifications must stand on their own justification, as measures designed to maintain White Supremacy.
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.[11]
Potter Stewart filed a brief concurring opinion where he reiterated his opinion from McLaughlin v. Florida that "it is simply not possible for a state law to be valid under our Constitution which makes the criminality of an act depend upon the race of the actor."
Later implications
The definition of a marriage and what constitutes a family was reconsidered by society after the decision of Loving v. Virginia. Following Loving v. Virginia, The Changing Nature of Interracial Marriage in Georgia: A Research Note states "there was a 448 per cent increase in the number of interracial marriages (from 21 in 1967 to 115 in 1970)" (Aldridge, 1973). These numbers are only from the state of Georgia after the Supreme Court ruling, but the numbers and percentages only continued to increase across the United States.[citation needed] However, interracial couples still had to overcome many fears of possibly losing respect from friends, family, and the community.
Some activists believe that the Loving ruling will eventually aid the marriage equality movement for same-sex partnerships, if courts allow the Equal Protection Clause to be used. F.C. Decoste states, "If the only arguments against same sex marriage are sectarian, then opposing the legalization of same sex marriage is invidious in a fashion no different from supporting anti miscegenation laws". These activists maintain that miscegenation laws are to interracial marriage, as sodomy laws are to homosexual rights and that sodomy laws were enacted in order to maintain traditional sex roles that have become part of American society.
On June 12, 2007, Mildred Loving issued a rare public statement, which commented on same-sex marriage, prepared for delivery on the fortieth anniversary of the Loving v. Virginia decision of the US Supreme Court.[12] The concluding paragraphs of her statement read as follows:
Surrounded as I am now by wonderful children and grandchildren, not a day goes by that I don't think of Richard and our love, our right to marry, and how much it meant to me to have that freedom to marry the person precious to me, even if others thought he was the "wrong kind of person" for me to marry. I believe all Americans, no matter their race, no matter their sex, no matter their sexual orientation, should have that same freedom to marry. Government has no business imposing some people's religious beliefs over others. Especially if it denies people's civil rights. 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.
The Majority Opinion of the New York Court of Appeals in Hernandez v. Robles (2006) rejected any reliance upon the Loving case as controlling upon the issue of same-sex marriage, holding that:
[T]he historical background of Loving is different from the history underlying this case. [...] But the traditional definition of marriage is not merely a by-product of historical injustice. Its history is of a different kind. The idea that same-sex marriage is even possible is a relatively new one. Until a few decades ago, it was an accepted truth for almost everyone who ever lived, in any society in which marriage existed, that there could be marriages only between participants of different sex. A court should not lightly conclude that everyone who held this belief was irrational, ignorant or bigoted. We do not so conclude.[13]
In the August 4, 2010 federal district court decision in Perry v. Schwarzenegger, which overturned California's Proposition 8, Judge Vaughn Walker cited Loving v. Virginia when justifying his conclusion that "the right to marry protects an individual's choice of marital partner regardless of gender".[14]
Film
The story of the Lovings has been turned into a film, Mr. & Mrs. Loving (1996), starring Lela Rochon, Timothy Hutton and Ruby Dee. The screenplay was written and directed by Richard Friedenberg. Mildred Loving disputed the accuracy of the film.[15]
Deaths
Richard Loving died in an automobile accident in 1975 that also seriously injured Mildred.[16]
Mildred Loving died of pneumonia on May 2, 2008, in Milford, Virginia.[16] Her daughter, Peggy Fortune, told the Associated Press: "I want (people) to remember her as being strong and brave yet humble — and believed in love."
The final sentence in Mildred Loving's obituary in The New York Times[17] makes note of the June 2007 statement noted above to commemorate the 40th anniversary of Loving v. Virginia. Part of the Washington Post’s obituary read: “A modest homemaker, Loving never thought she had done anything extraordinary. ‘It wasn't my doing,’ Loving told the Associated Press in a rare interview a year ago. ‘It was God's work.’"
See also
- Civil rights movement
- African-American Civil Rights Movement (1955–1968)
- List of United States Supreme Court cases, volume 388
- Loving Day
- Pace v. Alabama
- Perez v. Sharp
- McLaughlin v. Florida
- Kip Rhinelander
- Perry v. Schwarzenegger
- Guess Who's Coming to Dinner
References
- ^ Full text of the opinion in Loving v. Virginia courtesy of Findlaw.com.
- ^ title=Loving v. Virginia and the Hegemony of "Race"
- ^ Pioneer of interracial marriage looks back
- ^ "Social Security Death Index (Mildred D. Loving) [database on-line]". United States: The Generations Network. Retrieved May 6, 2009.
- ^ "Social Security Death Index (Richard Loving) [database on-line]". United States: The Generations Network. Retrieved May 6, 2009.
- ^ "The Fortieth Anniversary of Loving v. Virginia". FindLaw. 2007-05-30.
- ^ "Consensus on Racial Justice, 1966 Business Resolution". Unitarian Universalist Association. 2007-03-07. Retrieved 2008-07-12.
- ^ Pascoe 1996, pp. 49–51
- ^ Pascoe 1996, p. 56
- ^ Pascoe 1996, p. 60
- ^ Sengupta, Somini (2000-11-12). "November 5–11; Marry at Will". New York Times. Retrieved 2009-05-27.
The margin by which the measure passed was itself a statement. A clear majority, 60 percent, voted to remove the miscegenation statute from the state constitution, but 40 percent of Alabamans -- nearly 526,000 people -- voted to keep it.
- ^ Mildred Loving (2007-06-12). "Loving for All" (PDF). Freedom to Marry. Retrieved 2008-07-12.
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- ^ "Hernandez v Robles (2006 NY Slip Op 05239)". New York State Law Reporting Bureau. 2006-10-18. Retrieved 2008-07-12.
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- ^ Judge Vaughn Walker, Final ruling, Perry v. Schwarzenegger., August 4, 2010; p. 110
- ^ Associated Press (2007-06-09). "40 years of interracial marriage: Mildred Loving reflects on breaking the color barrier". International Herald-Tribune. Retrieved 2008-04-28.
'Not much of [the film] was very true,' she said on a recent Thursday afternoon. 'The only part of it right was I had three children.'
- ^ a b Sullivan, Patricia (May 6, 2008). "Quiet Va. Wife Ended Interracial Marriage Ban". Washington Post. Retrieved May 6, 2008.
Mildred Jeter Loving, 68, a black woman whose refusal to accept Virginia's ban on interracial marriage led to a U.S. Supreme Court decision in 1967 that struck down similar laws across the country, died of pneumonia Friday [May 2; May 6, the day of publication, was a Tuesday] at her home in Milford, Virginia ....<Richard Loving was killed in 1975 when a drunk driver struck their car. Mildred Loving, who was also in the car, lost her right eye in the collision.
- ^ Martin, Douglas (May 6, 2008). "Mildred Loving, Who Battled Ban on Mixed-Race Marriage, Dies at 68". New York Times.
Further reading
- Aldridge, Delores (1973). "The Changing Nature of Interracial Marriage in Georgia: A Research Note". Journal of Marriage and the Family. 35 (4): 641–642. doi:10.2307/350877.
- Annella, M. (1967). "Interracial Marriages in Washington, D.C.". Journal of Negro Education. 36: 428–433. doi:10.2307/2294264.
- Barnett, Larry (1963). "Research on International and Interracial Marriages". Marriage and Family Living. 25 (1): 105–107. doi:10.2307/349019.
- Brower, Brock (2003). "'Irrepressible Intimacies'. Review of Interracial Intimacies: Sex, Marriage, Identity, and Adoption, by Randall L. Kennedy". Journal of Blacks in Higher Education. 40: 120–124. doi:10.2307/3134064.
- Coolidge, David Orgon (1998). "Playing the Loving Card: Same-Sex Marriage and the Politics of Analogy". BYU Journal of Public Law. 12: 201–238.
- DeCoste, F. C. (2003). "The Halpren Transformation: Same-Sex Marriage, Civil Society, and the Limits of Liberal Law". Alberta Law Review. 41: 619–642.
- Foeman, Anita Kathy; Nance, Teresa (1999). "From Miscegenation to Multiculturalism: Perceptions and Stages of Interracial Relationship Development". Journal of Black Studies. 29 (4): 540–557.
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suggested) (help) - Hopkins, C. Quince (2004). "Variety in U.S Kinship Practices, Substantive Due Process Analysis and the Right to Marry". BYU Journal of Public Law. 18: 665–679.
- Kalmijn, Matthijs (1998). "Intermarriage and Homogamy: Causes, Patterns, Trends". Annual Review of Sociology. 24: 395–421.
- Koppelman, Andrew (1988). "The Miscegenation Analogy: Sodomy Law as Sex Discrimination". Yale Law Journal. 98: 145–164.
- Pascoe, Peggy (1996). "Miscegenation Law, Court Cases, and Ideologies of 'Race' in Twentieth-Century America". Journal of American History. 83 (1): 44–69.
- Walington, Walter (1967). Domestic Relations.
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ignored (help) - Wildman, Stephanie (2002). "Interracial Intimacy and the Potential for Social Change: Review of Interracial Intimacy: The Regulation of Race and Romance by Rachel F. Moran". Berkeley Women's Law Journal. 17: 153–164. doi:10.2139/ssrn.309743.
- Yancey, George; Yancey, Sherelyn (1998). "Interracial Dating: Evidence from Personal Advertisements". Journal of Family Issues. 19 (3): 334–348. doi:10.1177/019251398019003006.
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External links
- Text of Loving v. Virginia, 388 U.S. 1 (1967) is available from: Findlaw UMKC
- ABC News: A Groundbreaking Interracial Marriage; Loving v. Virginia at 40. Interview with Mildred Jeter Loving & video of original 1967 broadcast. June 14, 2007.
- Resources at Oyez including complete audio of the oral arguments.
- Loving Day: June 12—commemorating legalization of interracial couples
- Loving Decision: 40 Years of Legal Interracial Unions. National Public Radio: All Things Considered, June 11, 2007.
- The Fortieth Anniversary of Loving v. Virginia: The Legal Legacy of the Case that Ended Legal Prohibitions on Interracial Marriage Findlaw commentary by Joanna Grossman.
- 40 years of interracial marriage: Mildred Loving reflects on breaking the color barrier AP article in International Herald Tribune
- Mr. & Mrs. Loving at IMDb
- New York Times article upon the death of Mildred Loving
- Encyclopedia Virginia Loving v. Virginia
- Mildred Loving's Obituary from The Economist
- Chin, Gabriel and Hrishi Karthikeyan, (2002) Asian Law Journal vol. 9 "Preserving Racial Identity: Population Patterns and the Application of Anti-Miscegenation Statutes to Asian Americans, 1910-1950"
- United States Supreme Court cases
- United States equal protection case law
- United States substantive due process case law
- Trials in the United States
- United States Fourteenth Amendment case law
- Multiracial affairs
- Race-related legal issues
- United States civil rights case law
- Marriage, unions and partnerships in the United States
- 1967 in United States case law
- Legal history of Virginia