Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) said Saturday that he believes the US Supreme Court “overreached” and was “clearly wrong” when it legalized same-sex marriage across the country in the landmark decision. 2015 Obergefell v. Hodges.
Cruz was speaking on his podcast about the differences between that case and the recent Supreme Court decision that overturned Roe v. Wade, who had previously protected abortion rights across the country. She criticized the court for preventing individual states from deciding for themselves whether to allow same-sex marriage.
“Obergefell, like Roe v. Wade ignored two centuries of our nation’s history. Marriage was always an issue that was left up to the states,” he said. “In Obergefell, the court said no, we know better than you, and now all states must sanction and allow same-sex marriage. I think that decision was clearly wrong when it was decided. It was the overreach of the court.”
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Cruz has previously advocated allowing individual states to ban same-sex marriage. For many, her wish seems closer to reality because of last month’s Supreme Court ruling on abortion rights in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, which raised concerns that the court could overturn other decisions.
Justice Clarence Thomas expanded on that concern, stating in a solo concurring opinion that any decision made by the Supreme Court that was claimed to be supported by the due process clause of the 14th Amendment, such as Roe v. Wade, it needs to be reconsidered.
“Any substantive due process decision is ‘demonstrably wrong,'” he said last month, adding that “we have a duty to ‘right the wrong’ set in those precedents.”
Other rulings citing the due process clause include Griswold v. Connecticut, which established the right of married couples to use birth control; Lawrence v. Texas, which prohibits states from banning same-sex sexual relations; and Loving v. Virginia, which protects interracial marriage.
Thomas mentioned the Obergefell, Griswold, and Lawrence cases in his opinion, but did not mention the Loving case, which, if overturned, could threaten his own interracial marriage.
