Supreme Court opinion has some in LGBTQ community worried
"I think many of us in the LGBTQ community expected there to be some kind of fight in our future,"
"I think many of us in the LGBTQ community expected there to be some kind of fight in our future,"
"I think many of us in the LGBTQ community expected there to be some kind of fight in our future,"
In the fallout of the Supreme Court's decision to overturn Roe v. Wade in Friday's Dobbs v. Jackson ruling, a notable opinion from Justice Clarence Thomas has caught the attention of many in the LGBTQ community.
Thomas wrote that the rulings in both Obergefell v. Hodges and Lawrence v. Texas should be revisited leaving some in the LGBTQ community feeling fearful.
The 2003 Lawrence decision legalizes same-sex intimacy in a person’s home, while Obergefell legalized same-sex marriage in 2015.
"All of the constitutional jurisprudence at the supreme court recognizing LGBTQ rights has been since 1996," said Wake Forest University Law School Associate Professor, Marie-Amélie George.
"I think many of us in the LGBTQ community expected there to be some kind of fight in our future," said Guilford Green Foundation and LGBTQ Center’s Executive Director Jennifer Ruppe. "I think that the way this was positioned after overturning roe v wade sets a dangerous precedence for being able to overturn other rights."
George said Thomas' opinion breaks with the other conservative justices on the court.
"The majority opinion is really really clear in saying we are just addressing abortion,” George said. "That does not mean they are going to reevaluate LGBTQ rights decisions, but it should provide concern because it does provide a really strong basis for doing that."
Those reassurances do little to comfort those that are worried about their own rights.
"If you’re downplaying whether or not the courts, or whether lawmakers, in general, are going to go after marriage equality, we thought they wouldn’t go after Roe v. Wade. We thought it was impossible," Ruppe said.
Nationwide support for same-sex marriage is up to a new record high of 71% according to a Gallup poll released earlier this month.
"The court really lacks legitimacy when it rules in way that are against what the majority of Americans want,” George said. "They might decide and tip one side or the other when the country is really divided but what is very rare is to see a decision that is so opposite to such a clear majority of Americans.”