Anyone who knows me knows how much I hate the manufactured sentimentality that prevails at times like Valentine’s Day and Mother’s Day. But I trust it is as self-evident why this day is different as it is that “all men are created equal”…
Even so, I am only marking it because of its manifest relevance to the anti-racism protests still raging around the world. In fact, this is the first time in this day’s 53-year history that I’m bothering to do so.
Of course, the reason it’s celebrated as “Loving Day” is that, on this day in 1967, the US Supreme Court ruled in Loving v. Virginia that states cannot ban interracial marriages. And it must have humbled lawyers on both sides that the most compelling argument proffered in this case came from the lowly plaintiff himself, Richard Loving:
Tell the court I love my wife, and it is just unfair that I can’t live with her in Virginia.
(Loving v. Virginia 388 U.S. 1 1967)
Case closed.
That said, I wish I could say this case inspired the popular slogan “Virginia is for lovers.” This, especially if it meant millions in royalties accrued to the Lovings. Unfortunately, that’s just another fairytale that never came true.
There is no connection whatsoever. The slogan was just a gimmick a Richmond ad agency dreamed up in 1969 to attract younger people to replenish Virginia’s increasingly geriatric population. And I can personally attest that it worked like a charm.
Related commentaries:
anti-racism protests thread…