Photograph: Courtesy Danyol Leon and Bill Baker “The biggest concern I had was making sure I could make medical decisions for my son, who has epilepsy – and prior to that, I couldn’t – and for my wife.īill Baker (left) and Danyol Leon.
“Marriage was a way to offer protections,” says Bobbi Lopez, who identifies as cis queer and serves on the executive board of the California Democratic party. Here’s what they are thinking: ‘I want to counter this with organizing’ If that were to happen, the lives of these longterm couples would be upended. In a concurring opinion Friday, Justice Clarence Thomas wrote that the court should use the same rationale it followed to overturn Roe to “reconsider” Lawrence, Obergefell and Griswold – the cases that established the rights to same-sex relationships, same-sex marriage and contraception. “It’s not an automatic path to overturning from overturning Roe,” they said, “although certainly, I don’t put it past these Trump-appointed judges to be logically inconsistent.” Roe v Wade hinged on a right to privacy, a concept whose constitutional fuzziness Justice Alito attacked full-on, while Obergefell, Lemberg says, is different because it’s “explicitly linked to the equal clause of 14th amendment”. In other words, a court empowered to ignore its own tradition is more likely to do it again. “Previous judicial decisions are binding on all other courts, and this decision tampers with that.” Precedent is “one of the most important things in the American legal system,” they said. The most frightening thing about Roe’s undoing is that the supreme court was so zealous in undoing decades of precedent, says Alex Lemberg, a San Francisco attorney who identifies as queer.
How long before this court decides that the 2003 decision, Lawrence v Texas, isn’t part of our national tradition and same-sex intimacy becomes illegal again?” “They’re rightly afraid of losing the right to marry the person they love. But just seven years later, Obergefell’s mood has darkened.