# Loving v. Virginia (1967) Decided **June 12, 1967** — unanimously. The Supreme Court struck down Virginia's Racial Integrity Act (1924) and all remaining state anti-miscegenation laws (16 states still on the books), holding that the [[Reconstruction Amendments]]'s Due Process and Equal Protection Clauses prohibit state laws restricting marriage based on race. ## The Case **Mildred Loving** (Black and Indigenous) and **Richard Loving** (white) married in Washington D.C. in 1958, then returned home to Virginia. They were arrested in their bedroom in the middle of the night. Convicted under Virginia's anti-miscegenation statute, they accepted a one-year suspended sentence on condition they leave Virginia for 25 years. They moved to D.C., wrote to Robert Kennedy in 1963, who referred them to the [[ACLU]]. ACLU lawyers Bernard Cohen and Philip Hirschkop took the case to the Supreme Court. Chief Justice [[Earl Warren]]'s opinion is unusually direct: > 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... is surely to deprive all the State's citizens of liberty without due process of law. ## What It Established Three doctrinal holdings, all load-bearing for subsequent rights expansion: 1. **Marriage is a fundamental right** under the Due Process Clause — directly cited in [[Obergefell v. Hodges]] (2015) for same-sex marriage. 2. **Racial classifications are subject to strict scrutiny** even when "equally applied" (Virginia had argued the law treated both races equally because it punished both partners). The Court rejected this formalism — the relevant question is the law's purpose, not its surface symmetry. 3. **State law cannot override Equal Protection** even on traditionally state-controlled domains like marriage and family. ## The Through-Line Loving's significance has expanded since 1967: - *Loving Day* (June 12) is observed annually as a celebration of interracial families. - *Obergefell v. Hodges* (2015) explicitly cited Loving for the proposition that marriage is a fundamental right that cannot be restricted by tradition alone. - The Justice [[Clarence Thomas]] concurrence in *[[Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization]]* (2022) called for the Court to "reconsider" the substantive due process precedents that include *Griswold*, *Lawrence*, and *Obergefell* — but conspicuously did *not* mention *Loving*, which rests on the same doctrinal foundation. Thomas, who is in an interracial marriage, drawing this distinction without textual basis is the legal-realist tell of the matter. ## Current Threat While Loving itself is not under direct legal threat, the substantive due process doctrine it relies on has been narrowed by the *Dobbs* majority. The [[Respect for Marriage Act]] (December 2022) provides federal statutory protection for interracial and same-sex marriages even if the Court reverses the underlying constitutional holdings — a defensive maneuver that anticipates exactly this attack vector. ## See Also - [[Resistance Hub]] - [[Reconstruction Amendments]] — the textual basis - [[Obergefell v. Hodges]] — the doctrinal descendant - [[Civil Rights Movement]] — the political moment - [[ACLU]] — counsel of record