The draft opinion of the US Supreme Court striking down Roe v. Wade and abortion rights has led to fears that the conservative majority may next come for landmark judgments that decriminalised homosexuality and legalised gay marriages.

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The draft ruling, was leaked in the Politico, and was written by Justice Samuel Alito, for the majority comprising Justices Clarence Thomas, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett. Gorsuch, Kavanaugh and Coney Barrett were appointed by former President Donald Trump.

Coming For Gay Rights

“As we’ve warned, SCOTUS isn’t just coming for abortion – they’re coming for the right to privacy Roe rests on, which includes gay marriage + civil rights,” US Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez warned on Twitter. 

Ocasio-Cortez retweeted a post by Slate writer Mark Stern who said: “Alito’s draft opinion explicitly criticizes Lawrence v. Texas (legalizing sodomy) and Obergefell v. Hodges (legalizing same-sex marriage). He says that, like abortion, these decisions protect phony rights that are not “deeply rooted in history.”

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Speaker Nancy Pelosi, agreed and said that “the supreme court is poised to inflict the greatest restriction of rights in the past 50 years – not just on women but on all Americans.”

It Goes To Other Basic Rights, Says President Joe Biden

President Joe Biden said if the Supreme Court were to strike down Roe v. Wade, it would go far beyond abortion rights, to other basic rights, including gay marriages. 

“It concerns me a great deal that we’re gonna after 50 years decide that a woman does not have a right to choose,” Biden said in remarks at Joint Base Andrews. 

“But even more equally, as profound, is the rationale used. And it would mean that every other decision, related to the notion of privacy, is thrown into question. If it becomes a law and if what is written is what remains, (it) goes far beyond the concern of whether or not there’s the right to choose. It goes to other basic rights, the right to marry. It basically says, all the decisions related to your private life, who you marry, whether or not you decide to conceive a child or not, whether or not you’re going to have an abortion, a range of other decisions, whether or not how you raise your child,” said Biden.

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The President pointed to how it could play out in states like Florida that recently passed the ‘Don’t Say Gay’ bill. “Does this mean that in Florida they can decide they’re going to pass a law saying that same sex marriage is not permissible, it’s against the law in Florida. It is  a fundamental shift in American jurisprudence,” Biden added. 

‘Scares The Day Lights Out Of Me’

Jim Obergefell, the main plaintiff in Obergefell v. Hodges 2015 landmark  U.S. Supreme Court case which legalised gay marriages expressed concern that the conservative judges could overrule LGBTQI rights next.

“The extreme U.S. Supreme Court should not be overturning decades of established law and denying the most basic human health rights to women to make their own decisions about their lives and their bodies,” Obergefell, who is running as candidate for the Ohio house, said in a statement.

“It’s also concerning that some members of the extreme court are eager to turn their attention to overturning marriage equality. The sad part is in both these cases, five or six people will determine the law of the land and go against the vast majority of Ohioans and Americans who overwhelmingly support a woman’s right to make her own health decisions and a couple’s right to be married. This is a sad day, but it’s not over. We have fought the good fight for too long to be denied our rights now,” Obergefell said. He told CNN that it “scares the daylights out of me”.



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