Speaking on The View, actress and talk show host Whoopi Goldberg criticized Associate Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, warning him that he "better hope they don't come for you" after he jeopardized the legal right to interracial marriage with the Court's decision last week to overturn Roe v. Wade, the 1973 landmark decision that once protected a person's right to choose reproductive healthcare without excessive government restriction.
Goldberg warned that the Court had embarked down a slippery slope – and that Thomas' own marriage would eventually be at risk, whether he likes it or not.
You can hear her remarks in the video below.
The decision on Roe, which hinged on a right to privacy that while not explicitly granted in the United States Constitution was nonetheless accepted per the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment (which grants all citizens “equal protection of the laws"), suggested other Supreme Court rulings, such as those regarding contraception, same-sex and interracial marriage, are now in doubt.
Thomas suggested in a solo concurring opinion that established gay rights (Lawrence v. Texas and Obergefell v. Hodges) and contraception rights (Griswold v. Connecticut) should be reconsidered now that the federal right to reproductive freedom has been revoked, calling them "demonstrably erroneous" and calling on the Court to "correct the error."
But nowhere in his concurring opinion did Thomas mention Loving v. Virginia, a landmark civil rights decision in which the Court ruled that laws banning interracial marriage violate the Fourteenth Amendment. Thomas, who is Black, is married to Virginia "Ginni" Thomas, a hardline conservative activist who happens to be White.
Goldberg said:
“What’s next? Clarence Thomas is signaling they would like to get rid of contraception. Do you understand, sir? No, because you don’t have to use it."
“We were not in the Constitution either. We were not even people."
"You better hope that they don’t come for you, Clarence, and say ‘You should not be married to your wife,’ who happens to be white. Because they will move back.”
“And you better hope that nobody says, ‘You know, well, you’re not in the Constitution. You’re back to being a quarter of a person.’ Because that’s not going to work either.”
Many echoed Goldberg's criticisms.
Goldberg is not the only prominent Black celebrity to criticize Thomas for similar reasons.
Over the weekend, actor Samuel L. Jackson criticized Thomas, referring to him as "Uncle Clarence," a reference to the excessively servile Black character in Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin.
Thomas' critics have labeled him an "Uncle Tom" – another reference to Stowe's literary creation – and, more recently, "Uncle Ruckus," a reference to a fictional character on the animated sitcom The Boondocks who is internally racist, repeatedly proclaiming his love for the White race and disdain of the Black race to the point that he even identifies as Caucasian, saying he suffers from "reverse vitiligo."
Thomas and his wife have courted signficant controversy in recent months in light of the news that Ginni Thomas actively worked with members of former President Donald Trump's administration to overturn the results of the 2020 general election, which Democrat Joe Biden won decisively.
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