Ariana DeBose slams ‘rotten’ Supreme Court ruling: ‘My country is at war with me’

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Ariana DeBose has pleaded with people to “get in the fight” to protect women’s and LGBTQ+ rights after the “rotten-a**” Supreme Court overturned Roe v Wade. 

The Oscar-winning performer reflected on the end of Pride Month during an appearance on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon. She encouraged her “LGBTQAI+ brothers and sisters” to “don’t stop being” themselves, “fight for” their dreams, “fight” for their joy and to remember they are “valid”. 

DeBose also linked her feelings to the reality that the US is in a “fight” to protect peoples’ rights after the Supreme Court overturned the landmark 1973 ruling in Roe v Wade, which legalised abortion across the country.

“We can talk a lot about how the Supreme Court has just waged war on women’s reproductive rights, but the reality is Clarence Thomas was very clear on what his plan is,” DeBose said. 

She continued: “He’s not just coming for women. They already came for voting rights. They’re going to continue.

“But they’re coming for marriage equality. And quite frankly, they’ll probably come for adoption rights by same-sex couples.”

Justice Thomas wrote in a concurring opinion to the Roe v Wade ruling that the Supreme Court should “reconsider all of the court’s substantive due process precedent, including Griswold, Lawrence and Obergefell”. These landmark decisions secured the rights for people to accept contraception, declared that ‘sodomy’ bans were unconstitutional and legalised same-sex marriage across the US. 

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Ariana DeBose – who went down in history as the first openly queer woman of colour to win an Oscar earlier this year – urged people to “get in the fight”, which she said “starts on a local level”. She also advocated for people to “find ways to get involved” and shared that she felt a personal call to action. 

“I’m Black, I’m Afro-Latina, I’m a woman and I’m queer,” DeBose said. “My country is at war with me, and that’s hard. Oh my God, that’s hard.”

She continued: “But the only thing I can do is hold onto my joy and make a difference at a local level.”

DeBose explained that she is “trying to find the abortion funds” in her community that she can support. She said it was important for her to help “anyone with a uterus” get to a “safe-haven state” or to help those living in states “that don’t want to support them”. 

“So I want to encourage folks to research, get involved, but do your part because this is not about one set of rights,” DeBose said. “It’s about human rights.”

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Ariana DeBose added that now is a “time of planting seeds” because “seeds beget roots and hopefully really healthy trees”. But she said the current structure of the US government isn’t ‘healthy’ or helping people to flourish.

“We got a rotten-a** tree called the Supreme Court, and we’ve got to root it out,” DeBose said. “So do your part people!”

DeBose later shared a clip from her interview on Twitter, writing the fight is “not about one set of rights”. 

“This is about human rights,” she wrote. “Find your local abortion fund and consider donating monthly at abortionfund.org.”