Anger at Clarence Thomas’s call for the Supreme Court to review a range of existing civil rights continued unabated, with The View hosts expressing outrage on Monday, and the mayor of Chicago made her feelings known.
Thomas, a Justice on the Supreme Court, on Friday issued an opinion – separate to the repeal of Roe v. Wade – that supported a review of other civil rights.
The 74-year-old said that states should be able to refuse access to contraception; decline to recognize gay marriages; and even declare gay sex illegal.
On Monday, Whoopi Goldberg, co-host of The View, added her voice to the cacophony of opprobrium.
‘I want to make things very clear. I’m very pro-life. I’ve never been anti-life,’ Goldberg said.
Whoopi Goldberg on Monday added her voice to the chorus of anger at Justice Clarence Thomas, who suggested ending gay marriage, access to contraception, and even lawful gay sex
Thomas, 74, went further than any of his Supreme Court colleagues with his writing
‘I want people to have the lives they want, but I don’t want to force anybody – I don’t want anybody coming in my house telling me how to raise my daughter and what she needs because they don’t know.
‘And I appreciate everybody’s religion, but I do not subscribe to your religion. I don’t ask you to subscribe to mine.
‘And you do not have the right based on your religious beliefs to tell me because what’s next? As Clarence Thomas is signaling, they would like to get rid of contraception. Do you understand, sir? No, because you don’t have to use it!’
Goldberg noted that Thomas, who is black and whose wife, Ginni, is white, very deliberately ignored the 1967 Loving v Virginia case, which ended a ban on interracial marriages.
He said states should be able to reconsider 2015 Obergefell v. Hodges, which guaranteed gay rights; 2003 Lawrence v. Texas, which struck down a law against gay sex; and the 1965 case Griswold v. Connecticut, which guaranteed access to contraception.
Goldberg noted that black people were not legally recognized when the Constitution was drawn up, arguing that it evolved.
‘We were not in the Constitution either,’ she said. ‘We were not even people in the Constitution.
‘You better hope that they don’t come for you, Clarence.
‘And say you should not be married to your wife who happens to be white. And you better hope that nobody says, ‘You know, well, you’re not in the Constitution, you’re back to being a quarter of a person,’ because that’s not going to work either.’
Her comments came a day after the mayor of Chicago, Lori Lightfoot, who is in a gay marriage, declared at a Pride party: ‘F*** Clarence Thomas!’
Lori Lightfoot on Sunday declared at a Chicago Pride parade: ‘F*** Clarence Thomas!’
Lightfoot was speaking about the overturning of Roe v. Wade, and someone in the crowd shouted at her on the stage.
‘And if you read Clarence Thomas’s concurrent opinion, he said -,’ as she was interrupted.
‘Thank you – f*** Clarence Thomas.’
On Saturday, actor Samuel L Jackson dubbed Thomas ‘Uncle Clarence’ – a reference to the eponymous character of abolitionist Harriet Beecher Stowe’s novel, Uncle Tom’s Cabin.
Uncle Tom was widely seen as compliant and subservient to his white masters.
‘How’s Uncle Clarence feeling about overturning Loving v Virginia??!!’ Jackson tweeted.
The 1967 case declared that state bans on interracial marriages violated the Equal Process Clause and the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution.
The decision apparently led to Thomas getting married to Virginia Lamp 20 years later.
Samuel L Jackson accused conservative Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas of being an ‘Uncle Clarence’ following his opinion
Thomas was married to Virginia Lamp, a white woman, in 1987 – 20 years after the landmark Loving v Virginia case which allowed for interracial marriage
The Marvel Cinematic Universe actor asked Thomas how he feels about overturning that decision after he called for the court to ‘reconsider’ other decisions using the same premise
Thomas – the only black man on the Supreme Court – called for his colleagues to ‘reconsider’ and potentially overturn other cases decided on the legal authority of ‘substantive due process.’
Substantive due process refers to the idea that people have fundamental rights that are not specifically laid out in the Constitution – and was the basis for a number of landmark cases including Loving v Virginia.
‘In future cases, we should reconsider all of this Court’s substantive due process precedents, including Griswold, Lawrence and Obergefell,’ Thomas wrote.
Thomas notably did not mention the Loving case as one he thought the court should overturn.
The Supreme Court ruled in the Loving v Virginia decision that ‘There can be no doubt that restricting the freedom to marry solely because of racial classifications violates the central meaning of the Equal Protection Clause.’ The decision allowed for the marriage of Richard Perry Loving, right, and his wife, Mildred, left
Thomas was one of five Supreme Court justices who voted to overturn the Roe v Wade decision on Friday, which granted women a constitutional right to an abortion
With his tweet on Saturday, Jackson joined the ranks of celebrities speaking out against Friday’s Supreme Court decision rolling back nearly five decades of a women’s right to get an abortion.
At least 18 states have now banned abortions – and the Guttmacher Institute, a pro-choice research group, has said that 26 states are ‘certain or likely’ to ban the procedure.
At the Glastonbury Festival in the UK on Saturday night, singer-songwriter Olivia Rodrigo, 18, name-checked the five conservative justices who voted to overturn Roe v Wade, saying: ‘This song goes out to the justices Samuel Alito, Clarence Thomas, Neil Gorsuch, Amy Coney Barrett, and Brett Kavanaugh.’
She then called British pop star Lily Allen to the stage, and the two performed her 2009 hit F**k You in response to
Rodrigo also said she was ‘devastated and terrified’ by the SCOTUS ruling.
‘Today is a very, very special day. This is actually my first Glastonbury, and I’m sharing the stage with Lily [Allen] which is the biggest dream come true ever. But I’m also equally as heartbroken,’ she said.
‘I’m devastated and terrified [by the ruling] and so many women and girls are going to die because of this.’
‘I wanted to dedicate this next song to the five members of the Supreme Court who showed us at the end of the day they truly don’t give a s*** about freedom.’
After her words prompted huge applause from the audience, the Good 4 U singer went on to address the SCOTUS justices individually, calling them each out by name before introducing her guest performer.
‘Someone that I absolutely adore is here today,’ she said of Allen. ‘I think she’s the most incredible song-writer, the most incredible artist, the most incredible person, and I’m so lucky that she’s here singing with me today.’
Allen flipped the middle finger as she stood on stage, before saying: ‘We hate you guys!’ as the pair launched into the expletive-filled song.
![On Saturday, singer-songwriter Olivia Rodrigo called out the Supreme Court justices who voted to overturn Roe v Wade, saying: 'I'm devastated and terrified [by the ruling]'](https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2022/06/27/13/59552593-10955253-On_Saturday_singer_songwriter_Olivia_Rodrigo_called_out_the_Supr-a-1_1656332992290.jpg)
On Saturday, singer-songwriter Olivia Rodrigo called out the Supreme Court justices who voted to overturn Roe v Wade, saying: ‘I’m devastated and terrified [by the ruling]’
Lily Allen, 37, right, joined American singer Rodrigo, 19, on stage to perform her hit F**k You in response to the US Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v Wade
Meanwhile at a concert in London, Green Day star Billie Joe Armstrong claimed he was ‘renouncing his citizenship’ in the wake of the Supreme Court decision.
Armstrong, 50, made the declaration during a Friday night concert in London, telling the audience: ‘There’s too much f***ing stupid in the world.’
He also told the crowd he was going to move to the UK, a statement that was met with roaring applause.
‘F**k America. I’m f***ing renouncing my citizenship. I’m f**king coming here,’ Armstrong told the London Stadium crowd Friday night.
‘There’s just too much f***ing stupid in the world to go back to that miserable f***ing excuse for a country.’
He added: ‘Oh, I’m not kidding, you’re going to get a lot of me in the coming days.’
The musician’s political outcry continued Saturday night at his show in Huddersfield, England.
Concertgoers claim he told the crowd ‘f**k the Supreme Court of America’ before playing American Idiot, which the band has previously said was written out of anger about not being represented by national leadership.
He also alleged called the justices ‘pr**ks’ during his performance of Hitchin’ a Ride.
Green Day star Billie Joe Armstrong also said at a concert in London that he wants to move from the United States
The Supreme Court’s decision ultimately handed back power to individual states to decide whether or not to permit the procedure.
The justices held that the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision that allowed abortions performed before a fetus would be viable outside the womb – between 24 and 28 weeks of pregnancy – was wrongly decided because the U.S. Constitution makes no specific mention of abortion rights.
The decision means that women with unwanted pregnancies in large swathes of America will now face the choice of traveling to another state where the procedure remains legal and available, buying abortion pills online or having a potentially dangerous illegal abortion.
In an address at the White House, President Joe Biden said it was ‘a sad day for the court and the country’ and called the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade – and making terminations illegal for millions of American women – ‘wrong, extreme and out of touch’.
Accusing the court of ‘expressly taking away a constitution right that is so fundamental to so many Americans’, Biden vowed the fight over abortion rights ‘is not over’ and said his administration will do everything in its power to combat efforts to restrict women from traveling to other states to obtain abortions.
The decision was met with widespread protests across the United States.
Hundreds of demonstrators descended on the Supreme Court building in Washington, D.C., on Friday and Saturday to denounce the justices’ decision. The fenced-off area in front of the high court was filled largely with those demanding abortion rights.
Crowds carried posters with slogans such as ‘Abort SCOTUS.’ One protester carried a placard that said ‘limit guns, not women’ in reference to another Supreme Court decision this week expanding gun rights.
The Arizona Capitol building was besieged by pro-abortion protesters Friday night, forcing riot cops to fire tear gas to disperse the angry crowd.
Protesters in South Carolina clashed with police on Saturday when hundreds overcrowded the streets and six people were arrested by police.
And in Portland, Oregon, on Saturday night, a group of protesters smashed windows and vandalized several buildings.
Dozens were arrested in New York City and Los Angeles over the weekend as demonstrators flooded the downtown streets.
A protester lights a cigarette on a burning American Flag while marching with abortion-rights activists in DC on Friday
Hundreds of demonstrators descended on the Supreme Court building in Washington, D.C., on Friday and Saturday (pictured) to denounce the justices’ decision
Scrawled in black and red spray paint on one building in Portland was: ‘Death to SCOTUS.’ Another message read: ‘Abort the Court’ (pictured) Protesters posed with the graffiti
On day three of the protests this weekend, emotional protests and prayer vigils turned to resolve as several states enacted bans and both supporters and opponents of abortion rights mapped out their next move.
As of Sunday, most of the Roe protests had remained peaceful apart from a pickup truck that drove through a group of demonstrators in Cedar Rapids, running over a woman’s foot.