5. The Established Precedent

In overturning the interracial marriage bans, and thus obliterating the precedent of Naim v. Naim, the court established that marriage is a fundamental civil right, and therefore cannot be barred on a discriminatory precedent. It outlined what the proper exceptions to the Equal Amendment Clause were - that if there were a permisive, valid, state objective which necessitated otherwise illegal and/or discriminatory action, the bans would have been justified. However, with no permisibe or valid state objective requiring the action other than the separation of races, the laws were not fit for constitutionality.

The ruling established a packing punch for civil rights, as the obliteration of segregation in public places had done before it - that separate could not be equal, and therefore could not, and would not, be protected by the court without vigorous scruitny of the circumstances.