Abortion ruling casts cloud over usual cheer at U.S. Pride parades

Abortion ruling casts cloud over usual cheer at U.S. Pride parades

by Joseph Anthony
256 views

Lisa Turner,47, holds her daughter Lucy Kramer,14, during a candlelight vigil outside the United States Supreme Court in Washington, U.S., June 26, 2022. REUTERS/Evelyn Hockstein

People attending Pride celebrations hosted by LGBTQ+ communities across the United States expressed outrage at the Supreme Courtโ€™s decision to overturn the constitutional right to abortion, and a wave of anti-transgender legislation.

For more than 50 years, LGBTQ+ people and supporters have marched on the last weekend in June to celebrate hard-won freedoms. But now many fear those freedoms are under threat.
Pride parades in New York, Chicago, San Francisco, Seattle and Denver followed protests in some of the same cities decrying the Supreme Courtโ€™s decision on Friday to reverse the landmark 1973 Roe v. Wade decision that legalized abortion nationwide.
โ€œThis march is going to have more of a serious tone than celebratory, and I donโ€™t think thatโ€™s a bad thing at all,โ€ said Krystal Marx, executive director of Seattle Pride, which drew thousands of people to its parade on Sunday.
In New York City, throngs of people dressed in rainbow colors cheered as representatives of the abortion rights group Planned Parenthood took part in a parade in Manhattan. The marchers held pink signs that read โ€œTogether. We fight for all.โ€
โ€œEverybody please scream for Planned Parenthood!โ€ an announcer called over a loudspeaker. โ€œWe wonโ€™t back down!โ€ the crowd responded.
The marches commemorate protests that broke out after police raided a gay bar at the Stonewall Inn in New York City on June 28, 1969.
LGBTQ leaders fear the abortion ruling by the courtโ€™s conservative justices endangers personal freedom beyond abortion rights. In a concurring opinion, Justice Clarence Thomas wrote that the Court might reconsider other precedents, mentioning specifically the rulings protecting the rights to contraception, same-sex intimacy and gay marriage.
โ€œThe anti-abortion playbook and the anti-LGBTQ playbook are one and the same. Both are about denying control over our bodies and making it more dangerous for us to live as we are,โ€ Sarah Kate Ellis, CEO of LGBTQ advocacy organization GLAAD, said in a statement.
Even before the Supreme Courtโ€™s ruling against abortion rights, the LGBTQ+ communityโ€™s Pride month jubilation was weighed down by a raft of Republican-backed state laws that specifically target transgender youth.
The measures enacted in several red states bar classroom discussion of gender identity, block access to healthcare to help young people transition, and restrict participation in sports.
In Texas, where Republican Governor Greg Abbott has called for prosecuting some gender-affirming care as child abuse, the line from overturning Roe to rolling back LGBTQ+ rights was clear to Patrick Smith, who attended Houstonโ€™s Pride Parade.
โ€œThe government should stay out of our private lives,โ€ said Smith, who attended the event on Saturday with his partner. โ€œWomen went first. I fear what could happen to us too.โ€
Abortion rights and transgender rights were top of mind at San Franciscoโ€™s Pride parade, where people held signs that read โ€œAbort the Court,โ€ โ€œProtect trans youth,โ€ and organizers led a chant of โ€œGet your laws off our bodies.โ€
โ€œIt feels like thereโ€™s a cloud over everybody who has a uterus,โ€ said Maya Reddick, a high school student attending San Franciscoโ€™s celebration with friends. She held a sign that said โ€œreproductive rights are human rights.โ€
REUTERS

You may also like

Leave a Comment

Chijos News is an independent online publication that provides readers with the latest breaking Nigerian news, world news, entertainment, sports, business, and many more.

@2024 – Chijosnews.com. All Rights Reserved.

-
00:00
00:00
Update Required Flash plugin
-
00:00
00:00