(NAME-MCE) Mildred Loving on Same-sex Marriage

[Anselmo Villanueva]

--------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Ken Neubeck <kneubeck at comcast.net>
Date: Thu, May 15, 2008 at 9:09 PM
Subject: Mildred Loving on Same-sex Marriage

Mildred Loving died recently.  She and her late husband were the
Virginia interracial couple who challenged the laws prohibiting
marriage between men and women of different "races," and won this
challenge to marital apartheid in a path-breaking 1967 Supreme Court
decision.  I think that you will find the interview below to be of
interest, particularly in light of the historic California Supreme
Court decision today finding prohibition of same-sex marriage to be
unconstitutional in that state.

Best, Ken

See the NY Times obituary about the death of Mildred Loving.
http://www.nytimes. com/2008/ 05/06/us/ 06loving. html?_r=1& oref=slogin

The end of the obituary points out that in recent years she didn't give many
interviews, but this pioneer of the right to interracial marriage gave one
interview, on behalf of the right to same sex marriage. .

Loving for All

By Mildred Loving

Prepared for Delivery on June 12, 2007,
The 40th Anniversary of the Loving vs. Virginia Announcement

When my late husband, Richard, and I got married in Washington, DC in
1958, it wasn't to make a political statement or start a fight. We were
in love, and we wanted to be married.

We didn't get married in Washington because we wanted to marry there. We
did it there because the government wouldn't allow us to marry back home
in Virginia where we grew up, where we met, where we fell in love, and
where we wanted to be together and build our family. You see, I am a
woman of color and Richard was white, and at that time people believed it
was okay to keep us from marrying because of their ideas of who should
marry whom.

When Richard and I came back to our home in Virginia, happily married, we
had no intention of battling over the law. 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?

Not long after our wedding, we were awakened in the middle of the night
in our own bedroom by deputy sheriffs and actually arrested for the
"crime" of marrying the wrong kind of person. Our marriage certificate
was hanging on the wall above the bed. The state prosecuted Richard and
me, and after we were found guilty, the judge declared: "Almighty God
created the races white, black, yellow, malay and red, and he placed them
on separate continents. And but for the interference with his arrangement
there would be no cause for such marriages. The fact that he separated
the races shows that he did not intend for the races to mix." He
sentenced us to a year in prison, but offered to suspend the sentence if
we left our home in Virginia for 25 years exile.

We left, and got a lawyer. Richard and I had to fight, but still were not
fighting for a cause. We were fighting for our love.

Though it turned out we had to fight, happily Richard and I didn't have
to fight alone. Thanks to groups like the ACLU and the NAACP Legal
Defense & Education Fund, and so many good people around the country
willing to speak up, we took our case for the freedom to marry all the
way to the U.S. Supreme Court. And on June 12, 1967, the Supreme Court
ruled unanimously that, "The freedom to marry has long been recognized as
one of the vital personal rights essential to the orderly pursuit of
happiness by free men," a "basic civil right."

My generation was bitterly divided over something that should have been
so clear and right. The majority believed that what the judge said, that
it was God's plan to keep people apart, and that government should
discriminate against people in love. But I have lived long enough now to
see big changes. The older generation's 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 thought 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. Especially if it denies people's civil
rights.

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.