Loving v. Virginia

Loving v. Virginia was a 1967 U.S. Supreme Court decision striking down Virginia's anti-miscegenation statutory scheme that banned marriages between white and nonwhite people. The court held that the racial classifications of certain Virginia statutes restricted the freedom to marry and violated the equal protection clause and the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. The racial classifications constituted arbitrary and invidious discrimination because marriage is a fundamental right upon which the state cannot infringe. The case established marriage as a category requiring ...