Mike Johnson backed Clarence Thomas' suggestion that the Supreme Court 'reconsider' its rulings on contraception and same-sex marriage
- Mike Johnson backed Clarence Thomas' suggestion that SCOTUS "reconsider" its rulings on contraception and same-sex marriage.
- "There's been some really bad law made," he said in a podcast interview unearthed by CNN's KFILE.
House Speaker Mike Johnson backed up Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas' suggestion last year that the court revisit its landmark rulings on contraception and same-sex marriage.
CNN's KFILE unearthed an audio clip this week in which Johnson said that what Thomas was "calling for is not radical."
"In fact, it's the opposite of that," he added.
Johnson, who is now the Speaker of the House, made the comments in a podcast interview with right-wing commentator Todd Starnes on June 24, 2022 — the same day the Supreme Court voted to overturn Roe v. Wade.
Thomas joined the court's other conservative justices in the 6-3 decision, a historic and far-reaching ruling that immediately gutted abortion rights in nearly half of all US states.
Thomas went even further in his concurring opinion, writing that the court "should reconsider" its rulings in three landmark cases: Griswold v. Connecticut, which established the right to contraception; Lawrence v. Texas, which legalized same-sex sexual activity; and Obergefell v. Hodges, which legalized same-sex marriage.
The justices, Thomas wrote, are obligated to "correct the error" established by those precedents.
Appearing on Starnes' show the day that opinion was released, Johnson said that "there's been some really bad law made."
"They've made a mess of our jurisprudence in this country for the last, you know, several decades," he added. "And maybe some of that needs to be cleaned up."
CNN also unearthed another clip in which Johnson, a hardline conservative and longtime opponent of abortion rights, described abortion as "an American holocaust."
"The reality is that Planned Parenthood and all these big abortion" providers, "they set up their clinics in inner cities," he said in a May 2022 radio interview. "They regard these people as easy prey. I mean, it's true."