Dwain Northey (Gen X)

June 12, 1967, Loving v. Virginia, 388 U.S. 1, was a landmark civil rights decision of the U.S. Supreme Court in which the Court ruled that laws banning interracial marriage violate the Equal Protection and Due Process Clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

Crazy to think that was 56 years ago… in was born in March of 1967 and to think for the first 4 months of my life it was illegal for someone to marry an another that didn’t have the same skin color. It actually seems like an absurd case to have to bring before the Supreme Court… the right to marry someone you love just feels like too much government control over another’s life.

The Supreme Court overturned a Virginia Law banning interracial marriage base on the 14^th Amendment a unanimous Court struck down state laws banning marriage between individuals of different races, holding that these anti-miscegenation statutes violated both the Due Process and the Equal Protection Clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment.

This is the exact prevision of the 14^th Amendment they sited, “No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.”

That same language was used to grant a woman’s right to choose in Roe vs Wade and recently to grant marriage rights to same sex couples. This is one of the amendments that we all should know but sadly most only focus on the 1^st and 2^nd amendments.

Recently this stacked lopsided court overturned Roe Vs Wade in holding that the Constitution does not provide a right to abortion, the Court overruled Roe. First, the Court held that the right to an abortion is not a fundamental right recognized by neither the Constitution, our Nation’s history and traditions, nor encapsulated by other, broader rights. This is a giant step backward from this court that continually like to present themselves as originalists that can only read into a 240-year-old document exactly what was intended at the time it was written. The 14^th amendment was drafted and adopted in 1868 at a time when racism was alive a well and women had no rights.

So, what’s next on this right leaning Federalist Society docket of laws to repeal. We know that Roe was the first on the hit parade. Obergefell v. Hodges granting marriage equality to same sex couples passed by 5 to 4 margins in 2015, now the court has a 6 to 3 right wing majority. Will that be next? Loving was passed by a unanimous majority in 1967 but that doesn’t mean it is safe from this court.

Only once in history has an amendment been repealed, that was the 18^th amendment ‘The prohibition law’. This court seems like they would like to repeal parts of the 14^th amendment or at least ignore them.

Let’s celebrate our steps forward and fight like hell not to go back to whence we came.

Thanks again for undergoing through another diatribe. 😊