Loving Day

Richard and Mildred Loving were a couple that had to sue the state of Virginia to legalize their marriage. It was considered illegal because it violated the Racial Integrity Act of 1924, which stated that in order "to preserve racial integrity" that white people could not marry "colored" people (which was defined as, basically, everybody not white). The Supreme Court ruled unanimously that not only was the Virginia law unconstitutional, but that ALL such laws were unconstitutional. It was a landmark decision and was used as a precedent for approving same sex marriages.

In 2012, before that second decision was made, Raighne Hogan ran a Kickstarter to publish an anthology of comic works promoting the idea of marriage equality. At the level I backed the project, it included a page of original art from Noah Van Sciver's contribution. That contribution was a ten page biography of the Lovings so, as a white man married to a Black woman, I was keenly interested in that story. I was later thrilled to receive the final page from the story (shown here) which includes a very poignant quote from Mildred Loving.

I have more pages of original comic art than I have available wall space. (Which is more a commentary on my lack of wall space than anything else!) So I sometimes swap out which pages I have up on display at any given time. But this Loving piece, because it encapsulates and represents why I was able to marry my wife, is always on display.

Loving v. Virginia was decided on this day in 1967. "Government has no business imposing some people's religious beliefs over others. Especially if it denies people's civil rights."

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