Washington Lawyers: After Fall of Roe, Will LGBTQ Rights Follow?

With the U.S. Supreme Courts overturn of Roe v. Wade, Justice Clarence Thomas wrote in his concurring opinion in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization: “[I]n future cases, we should reconsider all of the Court’s substantive due process precedents, including Griswold, Lawrence, and Obergefell.” The Court established married couples’ right to privacy in the use of contraception in Griswold v. Connecticut (1965), decriminalized consensual gay sex in Lawrence v. Texas (2003), and legalized same-sex marriage in Obergefell v. Hodges (2015).

Many civil rights advocates believe that Justice Thomas’s writing signaled a willingness to roll back these hard-fought rights. This, combined with a wave of anti-LGBTQ laws springing up across the country, is fueling fears for the future among the LGTBQ and allied communities.

In the article “After Fall of Roe, Will LGBTQ Rights Follow?” published in the September/October 2022 issue of Washington Lawyer, UC Law’s Professor Ryan Thoreson discussed the legislative impact, sharing how LGBTQ issues are “one place where lawmakers, particularly those in red states, have gone to the mat with the Biden administration in challenging federal protections.”

Professor Thoreson also commented on the importance of legal advocates to help students navigate around anti-LGBTQ policies in their schools. He discussed how lawyers can be helpful “working with families and schools [in ways] that are less litigious and confrontational…There is real opportunity to engage with schools to find common ground…”

Read “After Fall of Roe, Will LGBTQ Rights Follow?”. 

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