A great, unsung hero of the Civil Rights movement passed away last weekend. Mildred Loving was the plaintiff in a 1967 Supreme Court case, Loving v. Virginia, which overturned "anti-miscegenation" laws and finally granted mixed-race couples the right to marry. Mrs. Loving's case proved to be a landmark in limiting the government's intrusion into the bedroom. It should also provide inspiration for gays and lesbians struggling to gain the same rights that Mrs. Loving and her spouse were denied.
Appropriately enough, the case began when Virginia police burst into the Lovings' bedroom one early summer morning and demanded to see their marriage license. Mildred (who was black and Native American) and her husband, Richard (who was white), had been married for five weeks. Both were branded as felons under the "Racial Integrity Act of 1924" and were forced to move out of their native Virginia. Several years later, wishing to return to visit family and friends with her husband, Mildred wrote a letter to U.S. Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy. This initiated a chain of events that led her to sue for her constitutional rights, and eventually the Lovings won a unanimous decision from the Supreme Court.
This case ranks alongside Brown v. Board of Education as the most important in the history of American civil rights. One of the major characteristics of oppressive societies is that they attempt to regulate the sexual and private lives of their citizens. For example, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran claims that his country is 100 percent gay-free, and anal sex is a capital crime in Saudi Arabia. Joseph Stalin banned homosexuality, and China forbade the conception of more than one child (it also wouldn't let the Rolling Stones play "Brown Sugar" in concert because that song "depicts an interracial coupling"). It was not until 2003 that the United States Supreme Court finally overturned laws against sodomy.
Sigmund Freud thought that the progress of civilization was marked by bringing people together and breaking down old boundaries -- be they boundaries of nationality, race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, etc. If true, Loving stands as a bold testament to this theory. Yet in today's fractious politics of racial separatism and division, its merits are rarely cited. Although I'd heard of her case before, I have to admit that I wasn't familiar with Mildred Loving until I read her obituary in The New York Times. But before I read that obituary, I was already very familiar with Louis Farrakhan, Pat Robertson, Jeremiah Wright, the Westboro Baptist Church and other fanatical preachers of hate. Why is it that such a profound Supreme Court decision -- and the heroic woman behind it -- should so frequently go unmentioned?
It is necessary for the false priests and prophets of division to keep us sequestered in our personal prejudices lest we see who we are. Interracial marriage is probably the truest way I can imagine of bridging that divide. It establishes black-white unity at the most fundamental social level -- the family. Once established, these unions of individuals, living together, gradually lead to unity on the larger levels of community and state. Now, obviously that's a grand scheme, and I've not bothered to lay out any particular method as to its achievement, but I think it makes some sense. Many people have grown increasingly tolerant of homosexuality due to the presence of gays and lesbians in their own families. Why should the same not be true for race? If people had aunts and uncles, fathers and mothers, nephews and cousins from across the racial spectrum, could there be any greater counterforce to prejudice?
A year before her death, Mildred Loving released a statement in support of same-sex marriage. It concluded with these words: "I am still not a political person, but I am proud that Richard's and my name is on a court case that can help reinforce the love, the commitment, the fairness and the family that so many people, black or white, young or old, gay or straight seek in life. I support the freedom to marry for all. That's what Loving, and loving, are all about."
