Today is...
Today is the 40th anniversary of Loving vs. Virginia. Mr. and Mrs. Loving were a young, racially mixed couple living in the state of Virginia in the 1960's. They married in the District of Columbia, then set up residence together. At the time, it was illegal for interracial couples to marry in that state and several others. They were caught and both sentenced to a year in jail, but were given suspended sentences, provided they did not enter the state of Virginia again. They appealed and the Supreme Court overturned all miscegenation laws in this country.
Forty years ago, it was illegal for a couple like Jimmy and myself to be married in seventeen states. Fifty nine years ago it was illegal in forty eight states.
In it's 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 discriminations. 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."
Today it seems unthinkable to us that any man could not marry any woman he chose, and vice versa. It's our basic civil right, to marry whom we love. I like to think that at some point, not too far off, we will also consider it a civil right for a man to marry a man and a woman to marry a woman, if that's who they love. Again, it's a basic right. It's one that I happily enjoy and I hope that everyone else will too.
Forty years ago, it was illegal for a couple like Jimmy and myself to be married in seventeen states. Fifty nine years ago it was illegal in forty eight states.
In it's 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 discriminations. 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."
Today it seems unthinkable to us that any man could not marry any woman he chose, and vice versa. It's our basic civil right, to marry whom we love. I like to think that at some point, not too far off, we will also consider it a civil right for a man to marry a man and a woman to marry a woman, if that's who they love. Again, it's a basic right. It's one that I happily enjoy and I hope that everyone else will too.