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The Supreme Court on Friday overturned abortion rights instituted by Roe v. Wade.
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Clarence Thomas said the court should “reconsider” rulings on same-sex marriage and relationships.
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Jim Obergefell said Thomas has omitted statements about interracial marriage because it “touches him personally”.
Jim Obergefell, the plaintiff behind the landmark Supreme Court ruling on same-sex marriage, said on Friday that Judge Clarence has omitted Thomas Loving v. Virginia from his list of Supreme Court decisions to “reconsider” because it “affects him personally.”
“It touches him personally, but he doesn’t care about the LGBTQ+ community,” Obergefell said. said on MSNBCs “The Reid Out.”
In a 5-4 decision released Friday, the Supreme Court voted to overturn Roe v. Wade. Majority opinion argued that the 14th Amendment, which prevents states from depriving citizens of “life, liberty, or property without due process of law,” does not protect the right to abortion.
In a unanimous opinion following the ruling, Thomas wrote that “we must reconsider all substantive precedents of this Court, including Griswold, Lawrence and Obergefell.”
These cases protect respectively the right of access to contraception, same-sex relationships and same-sex marriage.
Loving v. Virginia, which protects the right to interracial marriage and also addresses the 14th Amendment due process clause, was not on Thomas’s list.
Thomas himself is in an interracial marriage with right-wing activist Ginni Thomas.
“I’m just concerned that hundreds of thousands of marriages across this country are at risk and the ability of people across this country to marry the person they love is being compromised,” Obergefell said. “And I find it quite telling that Judge Thomas Loving v. Virginia completely omits it.”
Experts say the Supreme Court’s decision on Roe could have far-reaching implications for numerous civil rights rulings. In a dissenting opinion, the three liberal judges warned that if the conservative judges were “right” in their ruling, “all those decisions” such as same-sex marriage would also be “wrong.”
“He’s against our equality, he’s against our ability to actually be part of ‘We the People,'” Obergefell said. “So this consensus view for me is just a roadmap for opponents of LGBTQ+ equality to get past those decisions and make sure we know that they think we’re second-class citizens who don’t deserve protection and don’t deserve equality, so I’m just worried.”
Read the original article on Business Insider
