COLUMBUS, Ohio — Jim Obergefell of Sandusky, who was a plaintiff in the 2015 landmark U.S. Supreme Court case legalizing same-sex marriage, is concerned about the future of gay rights after the U.S. Supreme Court’s Friday decision overturning Roe v. Wade.
The court’s majority, written by Justice Samuel Alito, repeatedly referenced the Obergefell v. Hodges case in writing about why abortion rights are not guaranteed in the U.S. Constitution.
While Alito made it clear that “nothing in this opinion should be understood to cast doubt on precedents that do not concern abortion,” Justice Clarence Thomas wrote in a concurring opinion that the court should revisit gay marriage and other cases involving the Fourteenth Amendment, on which Roe v. Wade was decided 50 years ago.
“For that reason, in future cases, we should reconsider all of this Court’s substantive due process precedents, including Griswold, Lawrence, and Obergefell,” Thomas wrote.
Griswold v. Connecticut concluded that a state’s ban on the use of contraceptives violated the right to marital privacy. Lawrence v. Texas made same-sex sexual activity legal nationwide.
“I’d don’t think any of us are surprised that he said that,” Obergefell said in an interview on Friday.
Obergefell is running for the Ohio House as a Democrat.
“I’ve been worried about LGBGQ+ rights even after marriage equality was affirmed,” he said. “We haven’t enjoyed marriage equality because of people like Kim Davis and bakers and photographers. We have the right to get married, but we haven’t enjoyed marriage equality.”
Davis is a former county clerk who refused to sign marriage certificates for gay couples. Some wedding cake bakeries and wedding photographers have also denied services to gay couples.
Recently, LGBTQ+ events like Pride parades and drag events at public libraries have become favored targets of far-right groups. Earlier this month, police arrested 31 members of a white nationalist group Patriot Front in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, on suspicion of conspiring to riot charges. Authorities said they planned to disrupt the event.
In other instances, right-leaning groups and some lawmakers even conflate homosexuality and transgender people with pedophilia and so-called “grooming.”
Obergefell noted that the Ohio House passed a ban on transgender women from playing sports. Republicans in the House also introduced a bill puts limitations on school instruction by combining a Florida-style “don’t say gay” bill with a prohibition on teaching about systematic racism or sexism.
“But today is all about women losing women losing their right to make decisions about their own body,” he said. “Today is about government overreach. Today is about that invasion of privacy.”
Read more:
With U.S. Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade, Ohio expected to outlaw most abortions
How the soon-to-come abortion ruling could impact the Nov. 8 election in Ohio
