Today marks the 40th anniversary of the landmark Supreme Court case of Loving v Virginia in which the anti-miscegenation laws of Virginia and other states were struck down.To think that two people could not marry because of their race is, in many ways, mindboggling. And hypocritical. Let’s face it: you can’t look at a light-skinned black person without acknowledging that race-mixing was going on a long time before the Loving case was decided. I guess it was OK as long as the folks didn’t get married.
But in the Loving case – and the case of many other mixed-race couples – the idea that two people actually cared enough about each other to want to spend their lives together was not enough to overcome the argument that marriage was not meant for those who were of different races. I’m old enough to remember some of the arguments, many of which are familiar to those of us who worked against the Marshall Newman amendment last year. The world didn’t end because people of different races were allowed to marry.
Forty years later, the issue of race and interracial marriage is still very much with us. But progress is being made and with it, old prejudices are being swept aside. How appropriate it is that couple involved had that name, because that’s what relationships are about: loving.
Other articles: Daily Press, Virginian Pilot, NPR
VIVIAN J. PAIGE | All Politics is Local 
I hope those in the 79th will realize this as well considering Henry Light handed out fliers against the Marshall/Newman Amendment in Norfolk while Del. Joannou voted for this trash twice.
Light also sought out the Virginia Partisans Gay and Lesbian Democratic Club’s endorsement. Del. Joannou never responded.
Guess not…voters would rather vote for the guy, not for the issues.
Shame.
The idea that a man and woman of different not being able to marry is in no way similar to a man marrying a man or a woman marrying a woman. Common sense tells us that.
I read about Loving vs. Virginia and that obscene 25 year ban from the state. Thank goodness, the knucklehead who signed off it that penalty is no longer in office!
I agree times where different then, but it’s amazing that only 40 years have gone past.
However, in retrospect, a homosexual man or a lesbian cannot fight in an unpopular war legally. The military would rather hold judgment of a person’s sexual orientation that its absurd and outdated attempt at nation-building in Iraq. Check out my poem “You Can Share My Foxhole” on Gather.
Justice Harry L. Carrico authored the Virginia Supreme Court’s unanimous decision upholding Virginia’s anti-miscegenation statute. The decision was reversed by the U.S. Supreme Court.
Chief Justice Carrico retired from the Virginia Supreme Court in 2003. The Virginia State Bar gives out the Harry L. Carrico Professionalism Award each year. I hope that one of these years, the recipient will explain what Vivian said so clearly above in his or her acceptance speech.
I didn’t realize that the judge who wrote the decision just retired four years ago!
And we wonder why so much of this stuff is still with us.
By the way, you can read the Loving decision here.
Gays and lesbians have as much right to marry as a black and white. Love is love, simple and pure. The world, times, people, everything is changing. We as a country must change with the people to actually be a people country.