WASHINGTON, D.C. — When Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas was born on June 23, 1948 in Georgia, the country was a much different place. Thomas was born just as the nascent Civil Rights Movement was in its infancy. A black man, Thomas would come of age at a time of great social change in terms of race relations in America. He was 17 years old when the Voting Rights Act of 1965 passed, without which, there’s no telling when young Thomas would have been able to exercise his right to vote.
One would think that being born into an oppressed, segregated sub-population would make Thomas particularly attuned to the plight of the LGBT community. Discrimination against African-Americans in the Jim Crow days looked and sounded an awful lot like the discriminatory, anti-LGBT sentiments being expressed in the states still resisting same-sex marriage. But one would be wrong if they presumed Clarence Thomas was out to “pay it forward” for the helping hand up he got from those willing to fight the powers that be in the name of equality.
In a recent dissenting opinion that removed a stay in Alabama that was keeping that state from issuing same-sex marriage licenses, Thomas said he felt the decision was “may well be seen as a signal of the court’s intended resolution” of the gay marriage debate. The highest court in the country is scheduled to rule on a handful of key cases which legal scholars will set the country permanently on the path of marriage equality for all adults. Reporters recently caught up with the notoriously reclusive Thomas at a D.C. area Target store where Thomas was buying more black robes from the store’s “big, tall and ironically bigoted” section.
One reporter asked Justice Thomas if he sees any irony in a black man, born in the South at the height of the systemic discrimination that plagued it, being stubbornly in favor of keeping old, antiquated views of another subsect of the population being held under a repressive, autocratic thumb under the guise of “religious liberty.” Thomas told the reporters, “No, not at all. That’s different. Racism is racism, gay marriage is about butt sex and butt sex only.” When it was pointed out that lesbians and transgender people are fighting for the same rights Thomas said, “Yeah, but butt sex is icky according to the Bible.”
Reporters pounced on Thomas’ bringing up of religion. They asked if he thinks religious beliefs entitle someone to act on, not just espouse, discriminatory beliefs. “I think the Founders clearly envisioned a country where if enough people of a certain religious belief structure got together and decided to do so, yes, they could tell two consenting adults they’re not allowed to love each other and commit to one another.” When asked what the difference between interracial marriage and gay marriage is, Thomas simply said, “Butt sex” and moved on to the electronics section of the store.
Some in the press pool were curious why Thomas and his fellow social conservative Justice Antonin Scalia were so hung up on the sodomy thing when sexual intercourse is just one facet of any human’s existence. Reporters asked Thomas if he thought it would have been okay for Southern conservatives to use their religious beliefs to keep African-Americans from entering into loving, committed marriages. “You keep conflating civil rights and butt sex,” Thomas said to the reporters, “but there is no Second Amendment of Butt Sex. The framers didn’t specifically grant the right to have butt sex in any clause, paragraph or line in the Constitution or any of its amendments. As we all know, the Constitution is a hardened, set-in-stone kind of document and therefore if ain’t in there now, it’ll never be in there.”
Reporters asked Thomas about the 13th, 14th and 15th Amendments that effectively ended slavery and made all humans equal under the eyes of the law; they weren’t in the original Constitution. “Well, that was before Tony Scalia and I were on the job, protecting the true intentions of the white, elitist land owners who are no long dead that started this country. Also, they didn’t say anything about butt sex havers getting to be married. Just sayin’.”
One reporter from The Port Huron Lance and Chain asked Thomas just how often he thinks or talks about gay sexual intercourse. “Only as often as Tony and I have a chance to. I mean, you just can’t go anywhere these days without getting hit right in the face with it,” Thomas said, “the gay thing. I mean, did you see a bunch of black people marching, demonstrating, holding up signs, waving their blackness in everyone’s faces during the Civil Rights movement as some kind of way to confront Americans about something they were trying to just quietly ignore and sweep under the rug,” asked Thomas to the ether.
“If Tony and I don’t discuss butt sex,” said Thomas as he was selecting a box of wine to bring to Scalia’s house that evening, “then all the talk of gay marriage will focus on the wrong things.” When asked what those “wrong things” are, in Thomas’ mind, he paused for a moment and then said, “You know, like they’ll keep talking about they’re no different than us on the inside. They’ll keep saying things like ‘we can’t help who we are’ and stuff. They’ll make their argument based on logic and reasoning, not fear mongering and theocratic rhetoric about going to Hell in a hand basket. They’ll focus on everything except what is the most important, driving issue that both Justice Scalia and I can’t quite stop talking about, focusing on, and having long, late-night sessions with each other to draw crude stick figure renderings of positions we’d like to try one day if we weren’t so afraid and culturally programmed to be weird about it.”
“Butt sex?” asked the press pool in near unison.
“Yes. Butt sex. Butt sex all day, every day. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m late for an — appointment — with Justice Scalia to discuss this very topic in hard, unrelenting ways.” Justice Thomas selected his box of wine, took it and his new robes to the cashier, and paid. Justice Scalia was not available for immediate comment.
