Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas said blacks did not lose their dignity when they were made slaves.
Court documents divulged statements made by Thomas during Obergefell v. Hodges, the case that led to the legalization in same-sex marriage in all 50 states, where he stated that dignity cannot be granted, or revoked by the government. “Human dignity has long been understood in this country to be innate. When the Framers proclaimed in the Declaration of Independence that ‘all men are created equal’ and ‘endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights,’ they referred to vision of mankind in which all humans are created in the image of God and therefore of inherent worth. That vision is the foundation upon which this Nation was built,” he said.
Based on that core belief, which Thomas thinks is embedded in the country’s DNA, situations like slavery and the fact that gays couldn’t be married did not effect the dignity of those people. “The corollary of that principle is that human dignity cannot be taken away by the government. Slaves did not lose their dignity (any more than they lost their humanity) because the government allowed them to be enslaved. Those held in internment camps did not lose their dignity because the government confined them. And those denied governmental benefits certainly do not lose their dignity because the government denies them those benefit. The government cannot bestow dignity, and it cannot take it away,” Thomas continued.
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