Marvel Studios star Samuel L. Jackson blasted black U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas by using a racially-charged slur to criticize him over the court’s abortion ruling Friday.
After the Supreme Court issued its Dobbs ruling that overturned the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision, Jackson quipped on social media, “How’s Uncle Clarence feeling about Overturning Loving v Virginia?”
Of course, Loving v. Virginia is the famed Supreme Court decision from 1967 that declared prohibitions on interracial marriage were unconstitutional. The ruling came five years before the Roe decision and was solidly based on the Constitution’s Equal Protection Clause, finding that it is unconstitutional to prevent interracial marriage because marriage was “generally accepted conduct” outside the restrictions based solely on race, so the race restriction was arbitrary and meant solely to promulgate “invidious racial discrimination.”
Loving has no connection to Roe, does not rely on Roe’s reasoning (by virtue of coming down 6 years prior), and is not facing any public campaign for reversal. Indeed, Thomas himself never mentioned Loving for the chief reason that the 1967 ruling was decided on a completely different clause of the Constitution than whatt Thomas was focusing on in the cases he felt should be overturned.
In Dobbs, the court held that abortion rights could not be found in the “substantive due process clause.” And they also said that their decision could not be extended to jurisprudential matters beyond abortion because no other cases involved the “potential life” of an “unborn human being.”
In his concurring opinion, Thomas added that he did not believe that there was any such thing as “substantive due process” because that clause has been used to cover so-called rights that the Constitution does not mention. He also said that the clause only supports “process” of the law and does not prevent government from acting in ways that might restrict people’s actions.
But in Loving, an interracial marriage ban was knocked down because the Equal Protection Clause does prevent government from creating regulations that are based solely on religion, race, alienage, or ancestry. Abortion is none of those things, but interracial marriage certainly is.
Jackson is well-known for his often profanity-laced attacks on people with whom he disagrees politically. In February, for instance, he slammed Joe Rogan for using the N-word, but excused his buddies, including Quentin Tarantino, for the same offense. And not long ago he was seen tweeting “fuck John Voight” because the latter is a conservative.
Jackson has also been a big advocate of the “fight” against mythic “voter suppression,” as well as a virulent enemy of Donald Trump.
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