 Well, we got another indication that the far-right majority on the Supreme Court is very interested in overturning Obergefell the Hodges, which as you all know, is the landmark 2015 decision by the court that declared bans on same-sex marriages unconstitutional. Slate's Mark Joseph Stern writes via Twitter, quote, Justice Alito takes aim at Obergefell again, warning that the decision means Americans who do not hide their adherence to traditional religious beliefs about homosexual conduct are being labeled as bigots and treated as such by the state and society. Now, he made this comment in response to the court's decision to deny a writ of certiorary in the case of Missouri Department of Corrections v. Gene Finney. Now, the details about that case aren't important for purposes of this video, but I'll give you the quick rundown. In essence, that case deals with jury selection involving a case about employment discrimination against the lesbian woman, and the appeals court held that jurors can be struck if they're Christian, because presumably they couldn't be impartial in a case involving a lesbian woman since their religion teaches them that homosexuality is a sin. Now, the specific question in that case was whether or not it's unconstitutional to strike jurors specifically because of religious stereotypes, the belief that they're probably going to be bigoted against this lesbian woman, therefore, they can't be part of the jury here. And the appeals court said, no. Now, the Supreme Court decided to not take up this case themselves. And while Alito agrees with that decision, he still thinks that the lower court's reasoning is flawed specifically because of Oberberg-Fell v. Hodges. So here's what he says, quote, in this case, the court below reasoned that a person who still holds traditional religious views on questions of sexual morality is presumptively unfit to serve on a jury in a case involving a party who is a lesbian. That holding exemplifies the danger that I anticipated in Oberberg-Fell v. Hodges, namely that Americans who do not hide their adherence to traditional religious beliefs about homosexual conduct will be labeled as bigots treated as such by the government. The opinion of the court in that case made it clear that the decision should not be used in that way, but I am afraid that this admonition is not being heated by our society. Now, just stop for a moment and imagine that you are the attorney of this lesbian client. If somebody says that they have deeply held religious beliefs, would you not want to strike them during the jury selection process? Because obviously, they're not going to see a problem with this person being fired because of her sexuality, because they think that discrimination is A-OK, because that's what their religion tells them is appropriate. So it's obvious that in order to make sure that the jury is impartial, you have to make sure there's no discrimination. And one way that you suss that out is by asking them about their religiosity. That's just objective reality. Christians in this country are disproportionately likely to be homophobic and transphobic. Not all of them, but most of them. Statistically speaking, that's just the fact. So, Alito might not like that people assume this about Christians, but I mean, it's not an incorrect assumption. Now, his logic here is contradictory, because on one hand, he literally admits that the lower court made it clear, these are his words, that the ruling should not be used to justify discrimination in a broader sense based on religiosity. But the problem that he points out is that society is assuming religious people are all bigots. And Obergefell the Hodges is responsible for this mentality collectively, since it normalized same-sex marriages on the societal level. And before, blame Obergefell the Hodges. That's led to discrimination against Christians due to stereotypes about them being homophobic. That is him right there in a very sloppy way, laying the groundwork for the foundation for a constitutional justification to overturn Obergefell the Hodges. If you'll recall, Clarence Thomas already signaled support for overturning Obergefell in other cases as well in his concurring opinion in Dobbs. So that's at least two votes against marriage equality in the event it ever comes back to the Supreme Court. Now, if I had to guess, I think it would probably be struck down in a 5-4 decision. Now, if that happened, what would that mean for couples in same-sex marriages right now? And it really depends on the magnitude of their ruling in this hypothetical, albeit likely scenario. But assuming that they chose to go as far as they did with Roe, well, they'd strike down Obergefell in its entirety, which means that states could once again ban same-sex marriages. However, states would not be able to invalidate existing ones, and they would also have to recognize out-of-state marriages thanks to the Marriage Equality Act signed into law by President Biden, which codifies Obergefell the Hodges into law to an extent. Now, I say to an extent because there's still a degree of discrimination there that doesn't exist under the status quo in Obergefell, because it still creates an undue burden on same-sex couples and forces them to go out of state to get married when opposite-sex couples don't have to do the same thing for basic civil rights. But this was the compromise agreed to by Democrats to get Republicans on board. And because of that, it's still necessary to keep Obergefell the Hodges as the status quo since that makes same-sex couples equal, full stop. But if they overturned Obergefell and then the status quo became the Marriage Equality Act, well, then if you live in a red state like Texas, for example, or Florida, your life is going to be a little bit more difficult if you want to get married, right? You'd have to go to a different state. Now, to be clear, the Supreme Court could strike down the Marriage Equality Act as well if we really want to catastrophize here since they gave themselves the power to determine the constitutionality of laws that Congress passed in Marbury versus Madison. So the point is that nothing is guaranteed with extremists in power. And any rights that we have now we shouldn't take them for granted because they could be gone in the near future. But in conclusion, Obergefell is on the chopping block. And if the Supreme Court was bold enough to overturn Roe v. Wade, we have to assume that any and all of our other civil rights are also on the chopping block as well. So it's an unfortunate situation, but I don't think anyone is surprised to learn that these Scottish justices are chomping at the bit to take away more of our civil rights.