Justice Thomas’ Opinion Destroying Roe Threatens Legal Right To Interracial Marriage, Experts Warn

The legal right not only to same-sex marriage but also to interracial marriage — which reaches even further back in American history — is now at risk with the U.S. Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade and its profound upending of decades of basic rights, experts warn.

The possibility of the loss of the right to marry someone of another race was ominously raised when Sen. Mike Braun (R-Ind.) said in March that such a right should be left up to the states (as abortion is now). Following backlash, he retracted his statement, claiming he had misunderstood the question. Such a decision would mean that an interracial couple legally married in one state could be arrested while visiting another.

The Supreme Court’s decision Friday compared the Roe ruling to cases such as Obergefell v. Hodges, which guaranteed the right to marriage equality; Loving v. Virginia, which protected interracial marriage; Griswold v. Connecticut, which established the right for married couples to use contraception; and Lawrence v. Texas, which prohibited states from banning sexual relations between people of the same sex.

Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas suggested Friday in a solo concurring opinion that the court should reexamine other rights protected under the due process clause of the 14th Amendment.

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