WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, Representatives Jared Huffman (CA-02) and Jamie Raskin (MD-08), founders of the Congressional Freethought Caucus, released the following statement in response to the news of Supreme Court of the United States Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel A. Alito Jr. urging the court to reconsider the Obergefell vs. Hodges ruling: 

“Suggesting reversal of this landmark ruling is a dramatic attack on the LGBTQ+ community that turns religious liberty into a weapon against other people’s fundamental rights. Religious freedom isn’t the right to compel the government to deny the equal rights of other citizens. But, as members of the Congressional Freethought Caucus, we see right-wing forces on the Court and in Congress trying to twist religious free exercise into a bizarre new right to make the state discriminate against disfavored groups.   

“Any government that can turn the clock back to discriminate against same-sex couples can also turn it back to discriminate against interracial and interfaith couples. Nothing could be more deeply at odds with our principles of constitutional freedom and equality for all Americans.” 

Supreme Court Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito issued a four-page statement against the high court's 2015 decision Obergefell v. Hodges, which declared that same-sex couples have a constitutional right to marry under the 14th Amendment guarantee to equal protection of the law. 

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