Speaking on The View, actress and talk show host Whoopi Goldberg criticized Ohio Republican Representative Jim Jordan for arguing a bill to codify marriage equality is "unnecessary."
Earlier, Politico reported Jordan had urged fellow Republicans not to vote for the bill. Jordan reportedly told his colleagues voting on marriage equality is unnecessary because the Supreme Court isn't yet prepared to overturn Obergefell v. Hodges and Loving v. Virginia, the marriage equality rulings.
Jordan later took to the House floor to declare the bill "is simply the latest installment of the Democrats’ campaign to delegitimize and attempt to intimidate the United States Supreme Court.”
His actions angered Goldberg and you can hear what she said below.
Goldberg said:
"You know, Jim Jordan, I know you don't really pay attention to much, but I will say that what the Democrats seem to be running on is also protecting everyone's rights regardless of whoever you love or whoever you're married to if you are married."
"I don't know, but they're trying to make sure that the rights you are so easily, you know, able to give away."
"We're trying to hold on and say, actually, you can't do that, especially for a lot of folks who are also married interracially which is coming up bobbing its ugly head around."
Others have also criticized Jordan in the wake of his public appeal to block votes on the bill.
Concerns about the future of marriage equality have taken on fresh urgency in the weeks since the Supreme Court's decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization overturned Roe v. Wade, the 1973 landmark decision that once protected a person's right to choose reproductive healthcare without excessive government restriction.
The decision on Roe, which hinged on a right to privacy that while not explicitly granted in the United States Constitution was nonetheless accepted per the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment (which grants all citizens “equal protection of the laws"), suggested other Supreme Court rulings, such as those regarding contraception, same-sex and interracial marriage, are now in doubt.
Thomas suggested in a solo concurring opinion that established gay rights (Lawrence v. Texas and Obergefell v. Hodges) and contraception rights (Griswold v. Connecticut) should be reconsidered now that the federal right to reproductive freedom has been revoked, calling them "demonstrably erroneous" and calling on the Court to "correct the error."
Thomas's opinion spurred the House of Representatives to pass bills to codify the right to an abortion as well as marriage equality into law.
