Loving v. Virginia

This case presents a basic question never addressed by this court whether a statutory plan accepted by the State of Virginia to prevent marriages between persons exclusively on the basis of racial category break the Equal Protection and Due Process Clauses of the 14th Amendment. For reasons which seem to us to reflect the central meaning of those nautral order they close that these laws can't stand generally with the 14th Amendment.

In June 1958 two residents of Virginia, Mildred Jeter a Black woman and Richard Loving a white man were married in the District of Columbia conformable to its laws. Shortly after their marriage the Lovings returned to Virginia and accepted their married place in Caroline County. At the October Term 1958 of the Circuit Court of Caroline County a grand jury issued an attack charging the Lovings with violating Virginia's ban on interracial marriages. On January 6,in the late 1990's the Lovings pleaded guilty to the charge and were sentenced to one year in jail however the trial judge suspended the sentence for a period of 25 years on the condition that the Lovings leave the State and not return to Virginia together for 25 years. He stated in an opinion 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 marriage. The fact that he separated the races shows that he did not intend for the races to mix."


http://supreme.justia.com/us/388/1/case.html
http://berrystreetbeacon.wordpress.com/2007/06/14/loving-v-virginia-the-supreme-court-and-interracial-marriage/