The Michigan Attorney General issued a startling challenge to Supreme Court Justices who might consider relitigating same-sex marriage protections.
Speaking at the Democratic National Convention, Dana Nessel said anyone attempting to deny her right to marriage would need to pry her wedding band ‘from my cold, dead, gay hand’.
Nessel, who is a lesbian, also touted Kamala Harris’ action as California’s attorney general in refusing to defend in court the state’s ban on same-sex marriage.
She told the audience: ‘She refused to argue that some families should have fewer rights than other families. It meant a lot. She was fighting for families like mine.’
According to The Detroit News, Nessel brought a civil case overturning Michigan’s gay marriage ban and is the state’s first openly gay attorney general.
Speaking at the Democratic National Convention, Dana Nessel said anyone doing so would need to pry her wedding band ‘from my cold, dead, gay hand’
Nessel compared the California same-sex marriage ban to the 2022 U.S. Supreme Court decision that stripped away women’s constitutional protections for abortions.
She said: ‘After Roe v. Wade was overturned, Michigan’s archaic abortion ban was resurrected, but Vice President Harris had my back.
‘She reminded me that protecting people’s lives and defending their rights is our job.
‘And, just as the same-sex marriage ban was overturned in California, so too was the abortion ban in Michigan.’
Nessel and her wife, Alanna Maguire, have twin sons. They married in 2015 after Michigan’s same-sex marriage ban was overturned, according to the outlet.
The Supreme Court is currently made up of a majority of more conservative leaning justices, some of which were picked by former president Donald Trump.
The former president nominated Justices Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett, ensuring a 6-3 conservative majority.
At least one conservative in the Supreme Court, Justice Clarence Thomas has written about revisiting and overriding the same-sex marriage decision.
Nessel and her wife, Alanna Maguire, have twin sons. They married in 2015 after Michigan’s same-sex marriage ban was overturned
Nessel, right, hugs her wife, Alanna Maguire, at the Michigan Democrats’ election night party in Detroit on Tuesday, Nov. 6, 2018
In 2022, after Thomas made his thoughts clear, President Biden ruled his analysis as paving an ‘extreme and dangerous path that the court is now taking us on’.
The prospective law changes, released in a concurring opinion of the decision penned by Thomas, would see limits put on gay marriage, same-sex sexual activity, and citizens’ access to birth control.
At the time his opinion was released, Sarah Kate Ellis, head of the LGBTQ advocacy group GLAAD, called it ‘a blaring red alert for the LGBTQ community’.
According to the Detroit Free Press, Nessel took a swipe at Republican nominee Donald Trump during her speech.
The outlet reported that she said: ‘We know when [Kamala] takes an oath to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution, she’s actually read it.
‘Kamala knows you go from the court house to the White House, not the other way around’, referring to Trump’s ongoing legal battles and his hush money conviction.