Judicial Crisis Network president Carrie Severino dismissed the preposterous argument some liberals are making that the end of Roe v. Wade could lead to the end of interracial marriages, too.
Severino, who clerked for Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, noted that he is married to a white woman and Justice Amy Coney Barrett has a multiracial family.
This is such a beautiful family. Please pray for Judge Amy Coney Barrett and her family. pic.twitter.com/H4WZ47WmTo
— Jevon O.A. Williams (@JevonWilliamsVI) September 27, 2020
“You’re telling me that there’s a state out there who’s going to want to ban interracial marriage, and then the Supreme Court — with the majority presumably including Justice Thomas who himself is in an interracial marriage and Justice Barrett who herself has multiracial children — is going to say, ‘Actually, Loving v. Virginia was wrongly decided’?” Severino said on Fox Business last week.
In the 1967 case Loving v. Virginia, the Supreme Court ruled unanimously that state bans on interracial marriage were unconstitutional. More on why this decision was strongly grounded in the Constitution in a moment.
Despite how silly the argument is on its face, Democratic lawmakers like Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and Reps. Madeleine Dean of Pennsylvania and Eric Swalwell of California have stated since a leaked draft of a Supreme Court opinion overturning Roe became public last week that interracial marriages could be next, Fox News reported.
The New York Times editorial board wrote in a Friday piece, “Imagine that every state were free to choose whether to allow Black people and white people to marry. Some states would permit such marriages; others probably wouldn’t.
“The laws would be a mishmash, and interracial couples would suffer, legally consigned to second-class status depending on where they lived.”
Do you think some states would ban interracial marriage if given the chance?
Severino told Fox’s Stuart Varney, “It’s interesting to see the level of fear-mongering going on about this. I think there’s a few reasons. One is that they simply don’t want to talk about the actual arguments for abortion being in the Constitution because there’s no real argument there.
“But it’s also interesting because Justice Alito’s draft went out of its way to clarify that this opinion is not going to affect some of those rights,” she added.
“You’re telling me that there’s a state out there who’s going to want to ban interracial marriage & then SCOTUS — with the majority presumably including Justice Thomas who himself is in a interracial marriage — is going to say, ‘actually Loving v. Virginia was wrongly decided.’” pic.twitter.com/UmjLiI8oph
— JCN (@judicialnetwork) May 6, 2022
Alito noted in his draft opinion in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, which would overturn Roe and 1992’s Planned Parenthood vs. Casey, that the Constitution does not address abortion.
“We hold that Roe and Casey must be overruled. The Constitution makes no reference to abortion, and no such right is implicitly protected by any constitutional provision,” Alito wrote. “It is time to heed the Constitution and return the issue of abortion to the people’s elected representatives.”
In contrast to Roe, the Supreme Court firmly grounded its decision on Loving in the Constitution.
The justices cited the 14th Amendment, which provides, “No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.”
The 14th Amendment was adopted in 1868 just after the Civil War to ensure that African-Americans were treated equally under the law. Clearly, citizens were not being treated equally if they could not marry someone merely because they were of a different race.
At the time of the Loving decision, 16 states had bans on interracial marriages.
“At the very least, the Equal Protection Clause demands that racial classifications, especially suspect in criminal statutes, be subjected to the ‘most rigid scrutiny,’” the justices said in the ruling striking down the bans.
“There is patently no legitimate overriding purpose independent of invidious racial discrimination which justifies this classification” barring interracial marriages, the court added.
The justices also noted that the right to marry has long been recognized as fundamental.
“These statutes also deprive the Lovings of liberty without due process of law in violation of the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. The freedom to marry has long been recognized as one of the vital personal rights essential to the orderly pursuit of happiness by free men,” the court said.
The justices concluded, “The Fourteenth Amendment requires that the freedom of choice to marry not be restricted by invidious racial discriminations. Under our Constitution, the freedom to marry, or not marry, a person of another race resides with the individual, and cannot be infringed by the State.”
Severino said there are “a lot of clear reasons why Loving was correctly decided,” but not so with Roe.
The Constitution does not grant the right to an abortion, but it does affirm the right to life.
Hopefully, the Supreme Court justices will strike down the federal “right” to abortion and return the question to the states for the people’s elected representatives to decide.
A version of this article originally appeared on Patriot Project.
