Significance
By its decision in this case, the California Supreme Court became the first court of the twentieth century to hold that a state anti-miscegenation law violates the Federal Constitution. It preceded Loving v. Virginia, the case in which the United States Supreme Court invalidated all such state statutes, by 19 years, and antedated the civil rights milestones such as Brown v. Board of Education from which Loving benefited. Indeed, in Loving, Chief Justice Warren cited Perez in footnote five, and at least one scholar has discussed the extent to which Perez influenced his opinion.
The California Supreme Court also based much of its 2008 decision In re Marriage Cases (2008) 43 Cal.4th 757, which declared that the portions of California law which restrict marriage to be between a man and a woman to be unconstitutional, on Perez.
Read more about this topic: Perez V. Sharp
Famous quotes containing the word significance:
“The hypothesis I wish to advance is that ... the language of morality is in ... grave disorder.... What we possess, if this is true, are the fragments of a conceptual scheme, parts of which now lack those contexts from which their significance derived. We possess indeed simulacra of morality, we continue to use many of the key expressions. But we have—very largely if not entirely—lost our comprehension, both theoretical and practical, of morality.”
—Alasdair Chalmers MacIntyre (b. 1929)
“Of what significance the light of day, if it is not the reflection of an inward dawn?—to what purpose is the veil of night withdrawn, if the morning reveals nothing to the soul? It is merely garish and glaring.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)