Reflecting on the 47th anniversary of ‘Loving v. Virginia’ at the Supreme Court

By Adam Polaski
Jun 12, 2014 at 11:30 am

Today is the 47th anniversary of the Supreme Court decision in Loving v. Virginia, a landmark ruling that declared bans on interracial marriage in the United States unconstitutional. The Supreme Court ruled unanimously that all Americans should be free to marry the person they love.

The plaintiffs in the 1967 Loving case were Mildred and Richard Loving, a black woman and white man who filed their case to combat Virginia's anti-miscegenation statute, which prohibited interracial marriages.

The ruling has been a touchstone for supporters of the freedom to marry again and again - most recently in many of the 20 consecutive rulings in state and federal court in favor of marriage for same-sex couples.

Perhaps most poignantly, U.S. District Judge Arenda L. Wright Allen cited the Loving ruling when she struck down an anti-marriage constitutional amendment in Virginia in February 2014. Judge Wright Allen, in fact, began her ruling by citing a public statement by Mildred Loving from 2007, the 40th anniversary of her case being decided by the Supreme Court. In that statement, Mildred Loving declared:

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http://www.freedomtomarry.org/blog/entry/reflecting-on-the-47th-anniversary-of-loving-v.-virginia/