On Wednesday night, Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh chose to eat at a Morton's Steakhouse in Washington DC.
People upset with Kavanaugh's judicial record—especially his signing onto the majoritg opinion on Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization which overturned the 1973 SCOTUS ruling on Roe v. Wade—gathered to protest loudly, but peacefully in front of the restaurant while others placed calls to the restaurant urging the manager to kick Kavanaugh out.
As with other protests directed at the Republican nominated, Evangelical Christian endorsed conservative block of the SCOTUS, conservatives immediately cried foul over Kavanaugh's dinner being disrupted as if he possessed a fundamental right to privacy.
The irony that Kavanaugh and his conservative backers cited his right to live a private life when the SCOTUS cited no such right exists as their basis to overturn Roe wasn't lost on proponents of reproductive choices being made by the person whose body is affected and not the government.
Among them was bestselling author, educator and advocate Chasten Buttigieg.
Buttigieg quote tweeted a story about Kavanaugh with the caption:
"Sounds like he just wanted some privacy to make his own dining decisions."
In an interview on Fox News Sunday with Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg—Chasten's husband—the host asked about the tweet.
You can see Secretary Buttigieg's response here:
Fox host Mike Emanuel showed Chasten Buttigieg's tweet then asked the DoT Secretary:
"Is that appropriate, sir?"
Secretary Buttigieg replied:
"Look when public officials go into public life, we should expect two things."
"One, you should always be free from violence, harassment and intimidation."
"And two, you’re never going to be free from criticism or peaceful protest, people exercising their First Amendment rights."
"And that’s what happened in this case."
"Remember, the justice never even came into contact with these protesters. Reportedly didn’t see or hear them, and these protesters are upset because a right, an important right that the majority of Americans support, was taken away."
Secretary Buttigieg added:
"Not only the right to choose by the way, but this Justice was part of the process of stripping away the right to privacy."
"As long as I’ve been alive, settled case law in the United States has been that the Constitution protected the right to privacy."
"And that has now been thrown out the window by [SCOTUS] Justices, including Justice Kavanaugh, who as I recall swore up and down in front of God and everyone, including the United States Congress, that they were going to leave settled case law alone."
People applauded both Chasten Buttigieg's tweet and his husband's defense of it and the rights to privacy and protest.
Justices involved in decisions unsupported by the public have always faced scrutiny and criticism.
Sometimes those decisions conferred basic human rights to marginalized peoples, in other cases they took them away.
If conservatives expect people to see their rights stripped away without rebuttal, criticism or protest, they're either very naive or very deluded.
