CHIEF JUSTICE EARL WARREN The heart of the Supreme Court's 1967 decision, written by Chief Justice Warren, said this: 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 14th Amendment, is surely to deprive all the State's citizens of liberty without due process of law. 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." JOHANN BLUMENBACH

Johann Friedrich Blumenbach, a prominent German physiologist (1752-1840), divided the human species into five races: the Caucasian or white race, the Mongolian or yellow race, the Malayan or brown race, the Ethiopian or black race and the American or red race. In his era, physical characteristics such as skin color were linked to intelligence and abilities. Such concepts of race persisted until the mid-20th century, when scientists--and the courts--defined Homo sapiens as a single and inherently equal race.

Circuit Judge Leon M. Bazile drew on Blumenbach in his January 1965 defense of Virginia's ban on mixed marriages. "Almighty God created the races white, black, yellow, Malay and red, and He placed them on separate continents," Bazile said. " The fact that He separated the races shows that He did not intend for the races to mix."

In a statement accompanying its 1967 decision, the U.S. Supreme Court responded to Bazile by saying that distinctions drawn according to race were generally "odious to a free people" and that Virginia's law constituted "invidious racial discrimination." The court rejected the state's argument that the statute was legitimate because it applied equally to both blacks and whites.