Yahoo Finance Texas Attorney General Says He'd Defend Anti-Sodomy Laws if Supreme Court Revisits Ruling
Robert Daemmrich Photography Inc/Corbis via Getty Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton
Days after the Supreme Court announced it had overturned Roe v. Wade, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton appeared to support the court potentially revisiting other landmark cases — including one that protects same-sex relationships.
In a Friday interview with NewsNation anchor Leland Vittert, Paxton was asked about conservative Justice Clarence Thomas' concurring opinion on the Roe ruling.
In that opinion, Thomas writes that the Supreme Court should reconsider Griswold v. Connecticut, Lawrence v. Texas, and Obergefell v. Hodges — the rulings that currently protect the right to buy and use contraceptives without government restriction, the right to a same-sex relationship, and the right to same-sex marriage.
In Lawrence v. Texas, the court ruled that criminal punishments for those who commit sodomy are unconstitutional.
Asked specifically whether he would be "comfortable" enforcing a ban on sodomy or gay marriage, Paxton said: "Yeah, I mean, there's all kinds of issues here, but certainly the Supreme Court has stepped into issues that I don't think there's any constitutional provision dealing with. They were legislative issues, and this is one of those issues, and there may be more. So it would depend on the issue and dependent on what state law had said at the time."
Asked again if he would have a problem defending a ban on sodomy if passed by the state of Texas, Paxton responded: "My job is to defend state law and I'll continue to do that ... If it's constitutional, we're going to defend it."
The decision to overturn Roe v. Wade was officially announced Friday, a month after a 98-page opinion obtained by Politico — allegedly authored by Justice Samuel Alito and leaked to the press in a major breach of confidentiality — stated that "Roe was egregiously wrong from the start," and that "we [the Supreme Court majority] hold that Roe and Casey [another ruling on the right to abortion from 1992 which upheld the previous court decision] must be overruled."
From Thomas' concurring opinion: "... in future cases, we should reconsider all of this Court's substantive due process precedents, including Griswold, Lawrence, and Obergefell. Because any substantive due process decision is 'demonstrably erroneous,' ... we have a duty to 'correct the error' established in those precedents."
Jim Obergefell, the lead plaintiff in Obergefell v. Hodges who helped push for nationwide legalization of same-sex marriage, recently told PEOPLE that without Roe — and with Thomas' concerning statements, now supported by Paxton — "we are at risk of having our intimate relations once again be criminalized."
"These decisions, this movement towards government intrusion into our bedrooms, into our doctor's offices, into our schools, everyone should be worried about that," Obergefell warned.
Paxton is no stranger to controversy, having faced recent criticism after saying that his message to the families of the 19 students killed by a gunman at a Uvalde, Texas, elementary school would be that "God always has a plan" and "Life is short no matter what it is."
Paxton — who took a leading role in the failed Supreme Court case aimed at overturning the results of the 2020 election, which — was indicted on felony securities fraud charges months after taking office as attorney general in 2015. He has pleaded not guilty and the trial has yet to take place.
In 2020, the Associated Press reported that the FBI was investigating claims that he had abused his office to help a wealthy donor. There, too, Paxton has denied wrongdoing.
