4. Reasoning of the Court

Throughout the Court's statements are a variety of quotes relating back to what is an is not covered by the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment. Simultaneously, it discusses the exceptions, notably the end decision of Korematsu v. United States in 1944. "At the very least, the Equal Protection Clause demands that racial classifications, especially suspect in criminal statutes, be subjected to the "most rigid scrutiny," Korematsu v. United States (1944), and, if they are ever to be upheld, they must be shown to be necessary to the accomplishment of some permissible state objective (http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/conlaw/loving.html)". Korematsu v. United States was a case regarding the deportation and containment of Japanese-Americans by the U.S. military and whether or not it was an action required for security purposes. The Court had ruled that the Equal Protection Clause did not apply if there was a legitimate reason necessitating the ordinarily discrimitory act (http://www.infoplease.com/us/supreme-court/cases/ar18.html).

With that clear outline of what constituted the legal exceptions of the Fourteenth Amendment, Chief Justice Warren had gone on to state: "There is patently no legitimate overriding purpose independent of invidious racial discrimination which justifies this classification (http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/conlaw/loving.html)". This translates to the State failing to present a permissible state objective other than the separation of races. Consequentally, the Court's ruling on Loving v. Virginia overturned a prior ruling concerning an identical matter - Naim v. Naim. "In Naim, the state court concluded that the State's legitimate purposes were 'to preserve the racial integrity of its citizens,' and to prevent 'the corruption of blood,' 'a mongrel breed of citizens,' and 'the obliteration of racial pride,' (http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/conlaw/loving.html)".

The Court's final thoughts were as such:

"Marriage is one of the "basic civil rights of man," fundamental to our very existence and survival. 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 (http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/conlaw/loving.html)".

This quotation is perhaps the end-all-be-all of what the Court was considering. Chief Justice Warren had already outlined the invisible reasoning behind the barring of interracial marriage, thus establishing that there was no permissible State objective other than the separation of races, which the Fourteenth Amendment barred. Within his final thoughts, he specified that Marriage is considered one of the 'basic civil rights of man', concluding that it was not a right that could be infringed - it is inalienable, and therefore protected under individiual choice.

In summary: Virginia's argument was not substantial enough to sustain the laws they had set into place. Though the rulings were overturned and interracial marriage made legal, some laws banning on it remained on the books as long as 2000. Alabama was the last to remove the ban from its books (http://www.usatoday.com/news/vote2000/al/main03.htm).