The U.S. Supreme Court spoke with one voice when it struck down bans on interracial marriage in 1967 in the case of Loving v. Virginia, issuing a single opinion written by Chief Justice Earl Warren.
Here are five key quotes from the court's unanimous 9-0 decision,
via Cornell University Law School.
Vote Now: Should Gay Marriage Be Legal in All 50 States?
1. Constitutional Question
"This case presents a constitutional question never addressed by this Court: whether a statutory scheme adopted by the State of Virginia to prevent marriages between persons solely on the basis of racial classifications violates the Equal Protection and Due Process Clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment. For reasons which seem to us to reflect the central meaning of those constitutional commands, we conclude that these statutes cannot stand."
2. Racial Classifications Repugnant
"[W]e find the racial classifications in these statutes repugnant to the Fourteenth Amendment, even assuming an even-handed state purpose to protect the 'integrity' of all races."
3. Racial Discrimination
"The clear and central purpose of the Fourteenth Amendment was to eliminate all official state sources of invidious racial discrimination … There can be no question but that Virginia's miscegenation statutes rest solely upon distinctions drawn according to race."
4. Equal Punishment Rejected
"We have rejected the proposition … that the requirement of equal protection of the laws is satisfied … so long as white and Negro participants in the offense were similarly punished."
5. Basic Civil Rights
"Marriage is one of the 'basic civil rights of man', fundamental to our very existence and survival. …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. These convictions must be reversed."
Vote Now: Was the Supreme Court Right to Strike Down the Defense of Marriage Act?
© 2025 Newsmax. All rights reserved.