Loving V. Virginia

"Almighty God created the races white, black, yellow, malay and red, and he placed them on separate continents. And but for the interference with his arrangement there would be no cause for such marriages. The fact that he separated the races shows that he did not intend for the races to mix" ~ Judge Leon Bazile[1]

The Supreme Court case Loving v. Virginia was the turning point in centuries of marriage law that made it illegal for whites and any other race than American Indian to cohabitate as husband and wife. The Supreme Court eventually acted against popular opinion in Virginia and declared the laws unconstitutional as they made race the factor in determining a crime. Though the opposition claimed that it was equal and that something like this should be placed in the hands of the state legislature, they were superseded by the court's decision. In a time like the 1960s where racism was rampant and overtly running society, there was little the Lovings could do for their own defense within the law. The affect of the case was crucial to the nationwide repeal of miscegenation laws and to the formation of modern marriage and racial relations which directly transformed crime and punishment.