It was a celebration kicking off NYC Pride weekend - that suddenly turned into a rally cry.
The joy that was supposed to fill the Battery in the shadow of Lady Liberty was instead filled with fear and indignation.
"(Expletive) this court quite frankly, because that's not where justice is going to live," said Chase Strangio.
After two years of online rallies due to COVID, the NYC Pride rally was back in person. It was a rally with renewed purpose for those in attendance after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade.
In his concurrence, Justice Clarence Thomas wrote, "In future cases, we should reconsider all of this Court's substantive due process precedents, including Griswold, Lawrence, and Obergefell."
Lawrence v. Texas decriminalized intimate same-sex relationships and Obergefell v. Hodges made marriage equality the law of the land.
The president and CEO of GLAAD responded,
"Thomas' dissent is a blaring red alert for the LGBTQ community and for all Americans. We will never go back to the dark days of being shut out of hospital rooms, left off of death certificates, refused spousal benefits, or any of the other humiliations that took place in the years before Obergefell. And we definitely will not go back to the pre-Lawrence days of being criminalized just because we are LGBTQ."
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