Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito – Photo: Steve Petteway/Supreme Court of the United States
On Thursday, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito slammed same-sex marriage as a threat to religious freedom in an inflammatory speech before a conservative legal society over Zoom.
Alito was delivering remarks at an annual conference of the Federalist Society, a legal organization that has been engaged in a decades-long effort to groom young conservative lawyers for the federal bench, with the dual purpose of advancing “strict constructionist” approaches to law and changing the wider culture through their rulings.
Throughout his speech, Alito sought to cast social conservatives as a wronged group that is unfairly being persecuted because of their beliefs, often rooted in religion, opposing left-wing cultural values like support for abortion or same-sex marriage.
Alito specifically focused on two “religious liberty” cases that have come before the court in recent years: one, involving whether the Little Sisters of the Poor should be forced to pay for health insurance plans that provide coverage for contraceptives; and the other, involving the Colorado-based Masterpiece Cakeshop, in which the proprietor, Jim Phillips, refused to bake a cake for a same-sex wedding because of his personal religious beliefs opposing homosexuality.
Justice Alito said “a great many Americans disagree, sometimes quite strongly” with the views of the Little Sisters and Phillips, and “have a perfect right to do so.”
But he said the cases raised questions about whether society writ-large, and, even more problematically, government actors, would begin to favor a particular viewpoint and begin to censor speech or impose punishments on those who hold differing views, reports CNN.
He also criticized liberals who believe they may be winning the culture war who adopt the stance of “you lost, live with it” when dealing with those who disagree with them, including many Christians.
“For many today, religious liberty is not a cherished freedom. It’s often just an excuse for bigotry and can’t be tolerated, even when there is no evidence that anybody has been harmed,” Alito said. “The question we face is whether our society will be inclusive enough to tolerate people with unpopular religious beliefs.”
He argued that the court’s decision in Obergefell v. Hodges, which legalized same-sex marriage nationwide, had fueled intolerance toward those with beliefs opposing homosexuality, according to Slate.
“You can’t say that marriage is a union between one man and one woman,” lamented Alito. “Until very recently, that’s what the vast majority of Americans thought. Now, it’s considered bigotry. That this would happen after our decision in Obergefell should not come as a surprise. … I could see, and so did the other justices in dissent, where the decision would lead.
“I wrote the following: ‘I assume that those who cling to old beliefs will be able to whisper their thoughts in the recesses of their homes. But if they repeat those views in public, they will risk being labeled as bigots and treated as such by governments, employers, and schools,” Alito continued.
“That is just what is coming to pass: one of the great challenges for the Supreme Court going forward will be to protect freedom of speech. Although that freedom is falling out of favor in some circles, we need to do whatever we can to prevent it from becoming a second-tier constitutional right.”
Here is Justice Alito complaining that the Supreme Court’s same-sex marriage decision has crushed the free speech of anti-LGBTQ advocates. pic.twitter.com/0eH9QsxMTU
Alito minimized the significance of anti-LGBTQ discrimination, such as Phillips’ refusal to bake a cake in the Masterpiece Cakeshop case, noting that the couple behind the lawsuit was given a free cake by another bakery and received support from “celebrity chefs.”
He also railed against lockdowns and restrictive executive orders imposed by governors to try and curb the spread of COVID-19, claiming such restrictions infringed on people’s individual liberty. And he echoed grievances voiced by other conservatives claiming that conservative legal scholars are being attacked for resisting attempts to indoctrinate them in left-wing viewpoints, reports Politico.
“Unfortunately, tolerance for opposing views is now in short supply in many law schools and in the broader academic community,” Alito said. “When I speak with recent law school graduates, what I hear over and over is that they face harassment and retaliation if they say anything that departs from the law school orthodoxy.”
This is not the first time Alito has cast same-sex marriage as threat to religious liberty. Last month, he joined Justice Clarence Thomas in dissenting from the high court’s refusal to hear the case of a Kentucky Clerk who is being sued in her individual capacity by some couples to whom she refused to issue marriage licenses. Both justices claimed the court would have to revisit the same-sex marriage issue and resolve the conflicts between same-sex marriage and religious freedom.
Alphonso David, president of the Human Rights Campaign, the country’s largest LGBTQ civil rights organization, blasted Alito’s comments.
“Last night, Justice Alito shed any pretense of impartiality in a politically charged speech, again attacking the Obergefell decision,” David tweeted. “Justice Alito: our love and our marriages are valid. There is no tension between full equality and religious liberty.”
Last night, Justice Alito shed any pretense of impartiality in a politically charged speech, again attacking the Obergefell decision.
Justice Alito: our love and our marriages are valid. There is no tension between full equality and religious liberty. https://t.co/s6kZdeUOb2
Conservative Christians are absolutely outraged over casting a same-sex couple among families featured in the new reality show Back to the Frontier.
Premiering last week on Magnolia Network -- co-founded by HGTV stars Chip and Joanna Gaines in partnership with Warner Bros. -- the show is a social experiment that sends families to live like 1800s-era pioneers. Among them is Texas couple Jason and Joe Hanna-Riggs and their 10-year-old twin sons.
The Gaineses, executive producers of the show, have been open about their Christian faith. They own Magnolia Homes and rose to fame on the home renovation show Fixer Upper. They faced criticism for not including same-sex couples among their clients whose properties they remodeled as part of the show.
Baylor University, a Baptist college in Waco, Texas, is rescinding a $643,000 grant it received to study the inclusion of LGBTQ people and women in the church.
The grant, awarded to Baylor’s Center for Church and Community Impact in the School of Social Work, came from the Eula Mae and John Baugh Foundation, which funds progressive, faith-related initiatives focused on church-state separation, interfaith projects, and social justice.
The money was intended to "help foster inclusion and belonging in the church" by funding research into "the disenfranchisement and exclusion of LGBTQIA+ individuals and women within congregations," with the goal of encouraging more inclusive practices.
With Obergefell at risk and 32 states poised to restrict same-sex marriage, LGBTQ advocates push to enshrine protections at the state level.
By Maximilian Sandefer
August 6, 2025
On June 22, 2022, the Supreme Court issued a landmark decision with Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization. Abortion rights were now no longer guaranteed nationwide as the issue was left up to the states. This shock reversal of over 49 years of precedent left reproductive rights activists scrambling as anti-choice state laws stemming from as far back as 1864 were revived and reinstituted.
As people's ability to access to reproductive care dwindled in conservative-led states, activists also found their footing. The 2024 election saw abortion rights ballot measures win in seven out of ten states. As we navigate a landscape where it will likely be a long time before we see any form of successful federal legislation protecting a woman's right to choose, state-by-state activism seems to be the driving force behind change.
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