Coinciding with these codes were anti-miscegenation laws preventing inter-racial marriages. States defined those with Black heritage by searching for Black ancestors; if one person was identified in their family history as Black, then all descendants were labeled the same during litigation.
They went to the same schools and knew each other for most of their lives. The county operated under strict Jim Crow laws, but Central Point was seen as a cordial, mixed-race community. Richard and Mildred fell in love during high school, and on June 2, , they were married in Washington, DC. Their troubles began not long after returning home.
The law arose from a eugenics and racist propaganda movement aimed at keeping Whites and Blacks segregated. A warrant for Mildred Loving was issued soon after. Both were arrested, and on January 6, , they were given a suspended sentence of a year in prison but were allowed to relocate to Washington, DC, on the condition they not return for 25 years or risk imprisonment. Kennedy, who referred them to the ACLU. Two attorneys, Bernard Cohen and Philip Hirschkop, volunteered to take their case and petitioned the county circuit court to drop the sentence on the basis of the 14th Amendment.
Simultaneously, Cohen and Hirschkop filed a class action lawsuit in the U. The Lovings then moved on to petition the Virginia Supreme Court, where their motion was denied and returned to the appellate courts.
Court cases on the subject of inter-racial marriages occurred before the Lovings, many of which upheld the notion that such marriages were invalid based on the issue of race. Some claimed that since both parties were equally punished, the 14th Amendment was not violated at all. The repeated losses did not dissuade the Lovings or their attorneys from fighting their cause. The final test arrived in May , when Cohen and Hirschkop filed an appeal to the U.
Supreme Court. In , the Supreme Court of California ruled in the Perez v. Implications of Loving v. Following Loving v. Virginia, the Supreme Court made all anti-miscegenation laws unconstitutional. In addition to this immediate effect, however, Loving also has a profound effect on same-sex marriage cases. While the State in Loving tried to argue that its anti-miscegenation laws were constitutional because of their "equal" application among all races, many today argue that same-sex marriage bans are constitutional because they disallow a man marrying another man just as they disallow a woman from marrying a woman - "equal" application.
Those fighting for same-sex marriage rights use Loving to argue that marriage is a fundamental right and that marriage laws that are unconstitutional not only discriminate based on race, but on other factors as well, including sex. The following are West Topic and Key Numbers that will assist in searches.
Westlaw subscription required. It looks like you're using Internet Explorer 11 or older. This website works best with modern browsers such as the latest versions of Chrome, Firefox, Safari, and Edge. If you continue with this browser, you may see unexpected results. Virginia Search this Guide Search. Student Project: Right to Marry: Loving v. Virginia This research guide provides primary and secondary sources pertaining to the right to marry.
The guide focuses on interracial marriage and its current implications on same-sex marriage. Therefore, the Fourteenth Amendment voided state laws which wholly discriminated against any race.
It warned against the passage of laws which appeared fair and equal, but that were not expected to be upheld in a fair and equal manner. Commonwealth of Virginia. Mildred Jeter and Richard Loving, two Virginia residents, got married in June of , in the District of Columbia, according to its laws. Shortly after that, the couple moved back to Virginia and established their household in Caroline County.
During the October of term of the Circuit Court of Caroline County, a grand jury issued an indictment for the Lovings' arrest. They were charged with violating Virginia's law forbidding interracial marriages. At the time, Virginia was one of 16 states that prohibited and punished interracial marriages. These statutes had a tradition almost as old as America itself.
Virginia has had miscegenation penalties since colonial times, arising as a consequence of slavery. The statutory scheme at the time of the Lovings' offense dated from the adoption of the Racial Integrity Act of The kernel of this act was the absolute prohibition of a white person marrying anyone other than another white person. The Lovings were convicted and sentenced under two Virginia statutes. Section of the Virginia Code prohibited interracial couples from being married out of state and then returning to Virginia.
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