(LR) Supreme Court Associate Justice Clarence Thomas and his wife and conservative activist Virginia Thomas arrive at the Heritage Foundation on October 21, 2021 in Washington, DC.
Drew Anger | Getty Images
A gay Connecticut Supreme Court justice suggested that US Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas was hypocritical Calling for a review of decisions ensuring legal rights for gay people — while not calling for the repeal of a similar judgment, which allows Thomas to marry a white woman.
Andrew McDonald, a senior associate justice of the Connecticut High Court, took a shot at Thomas in a Facebook post after a US Supreme Court justice took advantage of a decision who canceled constitutional right to abortion To publicly call on the top US court to potentially reverse rulings that outlaw same-sex sex and same-sex marriage.
McDonald wrote, “Mr. Justice Thomas had a lot to say about my lovely wedding today. Oddly enough he didn’t have much to say about his ‘loving’ marriage.” ,
“Loving” is a reference to the 1967 US Supreme Court decision “Loving v. Virginia”, which overturned the Virginia law barring interracial marriages. This effectively invalidated other such restrictions at the national level.
Thomas, who is black, lives in Virginia with his white wife Virginia “Ginny” Thomas—the mirror image of the white husband and black wife who were the plaintiffs in “Loving.”
Andrew J McDonald, right, with husband Charles Grey, left.
Source: Keelin Daly | scheduled tribe
The couple in the case, Mildred Jeter and Richard Loving, were convicted of violating Virginia law and sentenced to one year in prison. The sentence was suspended after he agreed to leave the state for 25 years and not return.
The McDonald’s wedding ceremony was organized by then-Stamford Mayor Danell Malloy. After four years as governor of Connecticut, he successfully nominated McDonald to become the second openly gay man to serve on the US state’s Supreme Court.
McDonald’s stopped her husband from outlawing same-sex marriage six years earlier in the US Supreme Court ruling in Obergefels v. Hodges.
In this February 26, 2018 photo, Connecticut Supreme Court Justice Andrew McDonald, nominated for Chief Justice, speaks in front of the State Judiciary Committee in Hartford, Conn.
Michael McAndrews | AP. via The Hartford Courant
Thomas on Friday agreed to a decision to overturn the 49-year-old Roe v. Wade abortion rights ruling, identifying three previous decisions he called “clearly wrong decisions”: the 2003 High Court of the Supreme Court at Obergfels. The Verdict case that established the right to have same-sex sex, and the 1965 case that established the right of married couples to contraception.
But Thomas did not mention the fourth Supreme Court ruling that is based on the same legal basis as the other three: “Loving v. Virginia.”
“Loving” was decided by the Supreme Court on the grounds that Virginia’s law violated the due process clause of the 14th Amendment to the Constitution. That clause guarantees that no state “shall deprive any person of life, liberty or property without due process of law.”
So were three other Supreme Court decisions that Thomas said of his concurrence.
In that, Thomas wrote, “Because any genuine due process decision is ‘pretentiously wrong’ … it is our duty to ‘correct the error’ established in those instances.”
McDonald’s declined to comment on its Facebook post when contacted by CNBC.
A Supreme Court spokeswoman did not immediately respond to a request for comment by Thomas on McDonald’s Post.
Thomas, in his dissent in Obergefels v. Hodges, refuted the idea that so-called anti-abortion laws banning interracial marriage were similar to similar laws banning marriage between same-sex couples.
Thomas wrote in a footnote in their dissent, “the suggestion of the petitioners and their friend that anti-abortion laws are equivalent to laws defining marriage between a man and a woman is both offensive and incorrect.”
He said that early America’s laws banning interracial sex and marriage were based on the existence of slavery in the colonies and later states.
“The laws that define marriage between a man and a woman do not share this sordid history,” Thomas said. “The traditional definition of marriage is prevalent in every society that has recognized marriage throughout history.”
But on Friday, the plaintiff in Obergefels v. Hodges, Jim Obergeffel, said Thomas omitted Loving v. Virginia from the list of cases he wants to reverse because “it affects him personally.”
“But he doesn’t care about the LGBTQ+ community,” Obergefels said on the MSNBC show “The Read Out.”
“I’m just concerned that hundreds of marriages are at risk in this country and that people’s ability to marry the person they love in this country is at risk,” Obergefels said on that show.
He continued: “And for Justice Thomas to omit Loving v. Virginia altogether in my mind is saying a lot.”