“I’m terrified and people should be terrified,” says Jim Obergefell, whose lawsuit against the state of Ohio led to the Supreme Court ruling that gay marriage was protected by the US Constitution. READ ALSO: Florida pension fund sues Elon Musk over Twitter deal Yet legal scholars and civil rights pioneers say Alito’s arguments could also allow the Supreme Court to strike down major LGBT+ rights such as the right to gay marriage, the right of gay spouses to government benefits and recognition, and even the right to gay sex. Such a ruling would reverse nearly 50 years of precedent and allow Republican state governments to effectively outlaw abortion across a broad swath of the US, curtailing the rights of tens of millions of women. Giving the majority’s opinion on a Mississippi law that had sought to restrict abortion, in a case known as Dobbs v Jackson, he wrote that “Roe was egregiously wrong from the start” and that the right to abortion was not “deeply rooted” in American history. Last month, Justice Alito caused shockwaves when his draft ruling overturning Roe v Wade was leaked to Politico.

“Well, my face is red on that one,” Fried recalls now to The Independent.

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