Clarence Thomas Sends Democrats Spinning – Liberals Are Concerned He’s Going After Major “Substantive Due Process” Rights
What’s Happening:
The Supreme Court struck a win for all constitutional Americans when they reverse Roe v. Wade. Their decision restored the rights of the people (through their elected officials) to decide on abortion.
The decision to end Roe creates a new scenario, however. Other cases were decided, using similar arguments as Roe. Does that mean these cases should also be overturned?
Justice Thomas thinks so and wrote saying the court should revisit these rulings. And Democrats are panicking, big time.
From The Hill:
Justice Clarence Thomas’s concurrent opinion calling on the Supreme Court to reconsider landmark cases protecting access to contraceptives and LGBTQ rights is striking fear among Democrats, with many worried about how far the conservative court will go after it took the extraordinary step of reversing Roe v. Wade.
In his concurring opinion to Friday’s ruling, Thomas wrote that “in future cases, we should reconsider all of this Court’s substantive due process precedents,” arguing that the Constitution’s Due Process Clause did not secure a right to abortion or any other substantive rights.
To be clear, the decision by the Supreme Court only affected abortion. But, because of the reasoning for why they overturned Roe, Thomas believes they should overturn other related cases that rely on substantive due process.
Substantive due process, according to Thomas, has basically turned into a blank check for the justices to legislate their morality from the bench onto the American people.
Thomas specifically mentioned two cases, one that decided the “right” for someone to have access to contraceptives and the other, the “right” for the government to acknowledge same-sex unions as marriage.
Note that this is only Thomas’s opinion, and clearly not the opinion of the other judges who signed on to the majority opinion. The majority opinion of the court did not agree with Thomas on these matters. And it would require new cases to be brought before the court before any changes could be made.
But his opinion was enough to send Democrats reeling. Should these cases be overruled, much of the Democrats’ “progressive” over the last few decades would be erased.
Many liberal commentators even questioned why Thomas mentioned these specific cases but not Loving v. Virginia, which struck down all state laws prohibiting interracial marriage on the basis of substantive due process. Which they are calling hypocritical since Thomas, a black man, is married to a white woman.
There could be many reasons he declined to mention Loving, from our culture’s wide acceptance of interracial relationships to few, if any, states having laws on the books against it anymore. The same probably can’t be said for these other issues and vlues.
Demcorats are concerned because, if Thomas had his way, their radical agenda might be sent back into the dark ages.
And there is nothing, really, they can do about it.
These decisions were made by the court, preventing lawmakers and voters to decide. For years, Democrats have exploited the court to push their agenda, knowing Americans wouldn’t support it.
If the left really believed Americans wanted things like same-sex marriage, why not trust Americans to vote for it?
But the left knows most Americans wouldn’t, which is why they are so scared.
Source: The Hill