Yep. Scary, huh? The case is Loving v. Virginia. I can give you a link to the case if you'd like.

Now, the other thing to keep in mind is that 1967 is the year that this was decided by the federal Supreme Court. There are a couple of things to keep in mind when thinking about that fact. That case made it the law of the nation -- which means that Virginia and every other state had to follow that law. But that DOESN'T mean that no state allowed interracial marriage before 1967. Probably some did. But Virginia sure didn't and certainly at least some other states didn't.

Also, this same issue might have been determined the very same way ten, twenty, fifty years before IF it had been presented to the Supreme Court. But it wasn't. The Supreme Court can only make decisions, interpret the Constitution, and thereby create binding precedent when it is presented with a case. So we all depend on people who find themselves in an untenable situation to take the initiative and challenge laws such as this.

But also, chew on this for a while. It is now and has been for ten years or so (I can also get the exact date of this case if you like) the law that states have the right if they so choose to create laws that make "sodomy" illegal (look up the word, it means a lot more than you might think). That issue was decided in a case in which two men were discovered in a sexual act in their bedroom by a policeman who had been admitted to the home by a visitor to the home (i.e., not even a resident in the home). The cop was there on other business, and happened to look through a bedroom door that was slightly ajar, and saw two men making love. Arrested 'em. This was in Georgia. Long story short, Georgia lower courts held that the law was okay, and the judgment was ultimately appealed to the federal Supreme Court because one of the men (and his lawyers and pretty much everyone else) believed that passing a law that made a consensual act illegal must violate the federal Constitution. The Supreme Court said, no, if the state had a good reason to pass the law, then it doesn't offend the right to privacy.

A few years ago, the same case then found its way to the Georgia Supreme Court, which decided that the law was over intrusive and struck it down.

But we're still living in a country in which the federal Supreme Court has said that states can pass laws telling us what we can and can't do in our bedrooms.

What do you think about that?

Peace

~ ~ ~
All meetings end in separation
All acquisition ends in dispersion
All life ends in death
- The Buddha

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='_'=

Every hundred years, all new people