Today is a day to celebrate love. How appropriate, then, that late yesterday, Federal District Court Judge Arenda Wright Allen struck down Virginia’s ban on marriage for same-sex couples, and in her ruling, quoted Mildred Loving of Loving v. Virginia, the case that struck down that state’s and the country’s anti-miscegenation laws.
Here’s the quote:
We made a commitment to each other in our love and lives, and now had the legal commitment, called marriage, to match. Isn’t that what marriage is? . . . I have lived long enough now to see big changes. The older generations fears and prejudices have given way, and today’s young people realize that if someone loves someone they have a right to marry. Surrounded as I am now by wonderful children and grandchildren, not a day goes by that I don’t think of Richard and our love, our right to marry, and how much it meant to me to have that freedom to marry the person precious to me, even if others though he was the “wrong kind of person” for me to marry. I believe all Americans, no matter their race, no matter their sex, no matter their sexual orientation, should have that same freedom to marry. Government has no business imposing some people’s religious beliefs over others…. I support the freedom to marry for all. That’s what Loving, and loving, are all about.
— Mildred Loving, “Loving for All,” Public Statement on the 40th Anniversary of Loving v. Virginia, June 12, 2007
Allen issued a stay on the ruling pending appeal, so couples can’t get married in Virginia quite yet — but her strongly worded decision, coming from the state that overturned bans on interracial marriage, gave me chills.
Marriage isn’t the only format for love, but only one of its many possibilities. May today be a day full of possibilities for you and the ones you love.
