News
2007-06-02
Gay rights groups
celebrate anniversary of Loving v. Virginia
Several of the
nation's most prominent civil rights organizations have
announced the launch of their "Freedom to Mar
Several of the
nation's most prominent civil rights organizations have
announced the launch of their "Freedom to Marry" campaign to
commemorate the 40th anniversary of Loving v.
Virginia. This historic Supreme Court case advanced
racial equality and the freedom to marry in the United
States.
The campaign will
consist of six ads scheduled to run in Roll Call and
The Politico during the month of June. They
will feature pictures of well-known interracial
couples such as former U.S. secretary of Defense
William Cohen and his wife, Janet Langhart, and former
Florida governor Jeb Bush and his wife, Columba, as
examples of couples who could not marry in a large
number of states before the 1967 Loving decision.
The Loving v.
Virginia case stemmed from the arrest of Richard
and Mildred Loving, an interracial couple, after their
Washington, D.C., wedding. Under Virginia statutes
restricting marriage between people of a different
race, they were sentenced to one year in prison. The
Lovings appealed their conviction all the way to the Supreme
Court, who ruled on June 12, 1967, that their arrest was
unconstitutional.
"The 'Freedom to
Marry' campaign hails the Loving v. Virginia decision
as a milestone in the fight for racial and marriage
equality because it affirmed the freedom to marry as a
'basic civil right' of every American," the
organizations explained in a press release. The campaign is
backed by key civil rights organizations, such as the
National Association for the Advancement of Colored
People and the American Civil Liberties Union, as well
as several LGBT groups, including Lambda Legal, the Gay and
Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation, Gay and Lesbian
Advocates and Defenders, and the National Center for
Lesbian Rights. (The Advocate)
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