Michigan’s attorney general has issued a surprising challenge to Supreme Court justices who might consider relitigating same-sex marriage protections.
Speaking at the Democratic National Convention, Dana Nessel said anyone who tried to deny her right to marry would have to rip her wedding ring “off my cold, dead, gay hand.”
Nessel, who is openly gay, also touted Kamala Harris’s action as California attorney general in declining to defend the state’s ban on same-sex marriage in court.
She told the audience: “She refused to argue that some families should have fewer rights than others. That meant a lot to me. She was fighting for families like mine.”
According Detroit NewsNessel filed a civil lawsuit to overturn Michigan’s ban on gay marriage and is the state’s first openly gay attorney general.
Speaking at the Democratic National Convention, Dana Nessel said anyone who did so would have to have her wedding ring ripped “off my cold, dead, gay hand.”
Nessel compared California’s same-sex marriage ban to the 2022 U.S. Supreme Court decision that stripped away women’s constitutional protections for abortion.
She said: ‘After Roe v. Wade was overturned, Michigan’s archaic abortion ban was resurrected, but Vice President Harris stood by me.
‘It reminded me that protecting people’s lives and defending their rights is our job.
‘And just as California’s ban on same-sex marriage was overturned, so too was Michigan’s ban on abortion overturned.’
Nessel and his wife, Alanna Maguire, have twin sons. They married in 2015 after Michigan’s same-sex marriage ban was repealed, according to the outlet.
The Supreme Court is currently comprised of a majority of more conservative-leaning justices, some of whom were appointed by former President Donald Trump.
The former president nominated Justices Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett, securing a 6-3 conservative majority.
At least one conservative on the Supreme Court, Justice Clarence Thomas, has written about reviewing and overturning the same-sex marriage decision.
Nessel and his wife, Alanna Maguire, have twin sons. They married in 2015 after Michigan’s ban on same-sex marriage was repealed.
Nessel, right, hugs his wife, Alanna Maguire, at the Michigan Democrats’ election night party in Detroit on Tuesday, Nov. 6, 2018.
In 2022, after Thomas clarified his views, President Biden ruled that his analysis paved an “extreme and dangerous path down which the court is now taking us.”
The prospective legislative changes, published in a concurring opinion written by Thomas, would see limits on gay marriage, same-sex sexual activity and citizens’ access to birth control.
At the time her review was published, Sarah Kate Ellis, director of LGBTQ advocacy group GLAAD, called it “a clear red flag for the LGBTQ community.”
According to the Detroit Free PressNessel attacked Republican candidate Donald Trump during her speech.
The outlet reported her as saying: ‘We know that when (Kamala) takes an oath to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution, she has actually read it.
“Kamala knows that you go from the courtroom to the White House, not the other way around,” referring to Trump’s ongoing legal battles and his conviction for asking for hush money.