I've always thought this case was decided wrongly by an excessively activist court. The Lovings could have just gone to Maryland or some other state that performed inter-racial marriage. Their marriage would then have been valid in Virginia under the "good faith and credit" clause of the Constitution. Who can marry has historically been a legislative perogative, not a right. By making marriage a right, the Supreme Court opened the door to gays, polygamists, under aged teenagers, etc. Since marriage customs change with the times, the legislature, not the courts, is best suited to deal with who can marry and who can't.

From the Court's opinion:

"There is patently no legitimate overriding purpose independent of invidious racial discrimination which justifies this classification. The fact that Virginia prohibits only interracial marriages involving white persons demonstrates that the racial classifications must stand on their own justification, as measures designed to maintain White Supremacy. We have consistently denied the constitutionality of measures which restrict the rights of citizens on account of race. There can be no doubt that restricting the freedom to marry solely because of racial classifications violates the central meaning of the Equal Protection Clause."

"Marriage is one of the ‘basic civil rights of man,’ fundamental to our very existence and survival. [Citations.] To deny this fundamental freedom on so unsupportable a basis as the racial classifications embodied in these statutes, classifications so directly subversive of the principle of equality at the heart of the Fourteenth Amendment, is surely to deprive all the State's citizens of liberty without due process of law. The Fourteenth Amendment requires that the freedom of choice to marry not be restricted by invidious racial discriminations. Under our Constitution, the freedom to marry or not marry, a person of another race resides with the individual and cannot be infringed by the State."

Please explain how the court's reasoning is not supported by the 14th Amendment, or is otherwise "judicial activism." I ask because I want to know if the Justicies indeed missed an important Constitutional principle, or if you are just talking through your hat.

All I'm saying is that by making marriage a "right", the Court opened the door for gays, polygamists, and other unorthodox groups to insist that the right to marry belongs to them also. We now see various state courts going through all kinds of contortions to try and deny this logic. (Or in some states endorsing this logic.) And we have politicians trying to get the Constitution amended to prevent the logical extention of the Loving decision. For all these reasons, marriage laws should be left to the legislative branch, not the courts. This way marriage laws could change with the times to reflect changing customs, rather than being enshrined as an inalienable right forever.

I assume you put the word right in quotes because even you don't really believe that the Court was making marriage a right, but simply making it illegal to discriminate against a person's race in marriage.

And what is wrong with opening the door to gays? Sexual orientation should not be discriminated against either. As far as your slippery slope argument goes, I noticed that you couldn't list anything else on the slope besides Polygamy which isn't at all the same sort of issue, but probably deserves judicial review as well.

Don't get all Rick Santorum on us - it makes people question your real motives.