Loving Vs. Virginia - Miscegenation Laws Described

The state of Virginia sought justification of miscegenation laws on the grounds that since colonial times, the state has a right to prohibit interracial marriages. Although the law was based on the era of slavery being a legal act, the fact was that this constitutional question was never addressed or amended by the Supreme Court when discrimination and segregation laws were overruled. The judge at the time even suspended the initial one-year jail sentence in exchange that the couple would not live in the state of VA for twenty-five years, citing that they had to leave to uphold the law. The state of VA also felt that according to the Tenth Amendment, state regulation of marriage should be without federal intervention.

The state of VA tried to say that the miscegenation statutes punished equally both Black and White participants in an interracial marriage. Despite the significance of the interracial marriages being solely based upon Black and White participants at the time, VA did not think they constituted an invidious discrimination based on race. The Court saw that it was obvious that the restriction of the freedom to marry was based solely on racial classifications violated the true meaning of the Equal Protection Clause.

In each case, it seems as though marriage regulation laws are based upon each state unless taken to a higher power, which would be the Supreme Court. According to the Tenth Amendment, the regulation of marriage should be left exclusively to the state. In a case such as the Loving vs. Virginia case, the participants did not really stand a chance until the appeal was taken to the Supreme Court. Virginia State court law stood firmly by a law that was probably over 250 years old prior to the incident, thus making it quite obvious that there were still some racial boundaries that were quite not dealt with in terms of the law.

The two clauses that the Court used to strike down VA's miscegenation laws were the Due Process and Equal Protection clauses. The Due Process Clause is a clause that protects citizens from intrusive laws. The Court stated that the Loving's liberty was deprived without due process of law. The freedom to marry had been long recognized as one of the vital personal rights essential to the orderly pursuit of happiness by free men. The Equal Protection Clause prevents states from imposing discriminating classifications. The Court stated that there was no doubt that restricting the freedom to marry solely because of racial classifications obviously violated the core meaning of the Equal Protection Clause. There was not a legit purpose solely basing racial discrimination that would justify this classification.

The Court characterizes the right to marry by basing the state's judgment on sound justification. In this case, the Court sought reason by the Equal Protection and Due Process Clauses, but also by the free right to marry or not marry a person of another race and these types of laws cannot be infringed by the State.

Works Cited:
Introduction to Law and the Legal System, Frank A. Schubert, 8th Edition, 2004