Samuel Alito

—In a request for review, Alito, along with Justice Clarence Thomas, expressed a desire for the Supreme Court to take up a case challenging a Wisconsin school district’s policy that supports students’ gender expression. A conservative parents’ group challenged the policy though none of the parents involved have a student affected by the policy. Alito emphasized, without basis, that the policy is a violation of parents’ constitutional rights to make decisions about their children’s upbringing. He baselessly characterized the school district’s actions as encouraging students to transition to a new gender without parental knowledge or consent, framing this as a significant national issue. In fact, the school district explained, “All Gender Support Plans are maintained in a student’s permanent pupil records file. … Even if a student does not want their parents to know about their gender identity issues or the existence of the Gender Support Plan, they are specifically advised that the Gender Support Plan is a pupil record that is always available to their parents and that it is ‘not a privileged document between the student and the school district.’” Alito indicated his support for allowing more lawsuits that could challenge LGBTQ rights.

—With his wife, Martha-Ann Alito, flew a so-called “Appeal to Heaven” flag at their New Jersey beach home in the summer of 2023; that flag, which has its origins in the Revolutionary War, is now a symbol of supporters of Donald J. Trump’s “Stop the Steal” campaign, and for an effort to remake the government in the Christian nationalist mode. Mrs. Alito was recorded as saying that she would like to fly a “shame” flag in response to having to see a Pride flag in her neighborhood. 

—Sold at least some of his stock in Anheuser-Busch and bought stock in Molson Coors on Monday, August 14, 2023, a day after anti-LGBTQ social media extremists targeted and misgendered transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney during a manufactured controversy over her receiving a can of beer in a Bud Light campaign. The attacks on Mulvaney led to a boycott of the beer and its parent company, Anheuser-Busch.

—Displayed a “stop the steal” symbolic upside-down U.S. flag at his home days after the deadly insurrection at the Capitol and as the Court was considering and election case. Many Trump supporters who rejected the outcome of the election displayed the inverted flag outside their homes or in social media. The justices also would rule on two cases involving the storming of the Capitol on Jan. 6, including whether Mr. Trump has immunity for his actions. The Court code of conduct states, “A Justice should not engage in other political activity.” Justice Alito, who agreed, as did all the justices, to a code of conduct, did not recuse himself. Justice Alito blamed the inverted flag on his wife, Martha Ann, saying she hung it to send message to neighbors.

—Wrote the Supreme Court decision overturning Roe v. Wade and stripping the near 50-year constitutional right to abortion, claiming the justices who decided Roe “usurped the power to address a question of profound moral and social importance that the Constitution unequivocally leaves for the people,” neglecting to note that a decision to have an abortion is made a person, the patient. Alito claimed that the decision should not be interpreted to threaten other rights  of privacy such as marriage equality and contraception: “our decision is not misunderstood or mischaracterized, we emphasize that our decision concerns the constitutional right to abortion and no other right. Nothing in this opinion should be understood to cast doubt on precedents that do not concern abortion.” Justice Thomas, one of the “we” voting with Alito to overturn Roe, contradicted Alito in a concurrence directly challenging decisions that expanded privacy rights for all Americans and LGBTQ Americans, including Obergefell (marriage), Lawrence (same-sex relationships), and Griswold (contraception), claiming those decisions should be “reconsidered.”

— Renewed his criticism of the Obergefell decision that the fundamental right to marry is guaranteed to same-sex couples by the Constitution. Regarding a case involving whether it is permissible to remove anti-LGBTQ people from juries involving discrimination against LGBTQ people, Alito wrote a statement claiming that the case “exemplifies the danger that I anticipated in Obergefell v. Hodges” and warning that the decision means “Americans who do not hide their adherence to traditional religious beliefs about homosexual conduct” are being “labeled as bigots and treated as such” by the government and “society.”

—Delivered what’s described as an ultrapartisan speech to The Federalist Society, targeting the response to the COVID-19 pandemic and public safety restrictions against churches, as well as marriage equality, LGBTQ nondiscrimination laws and access to contraception. Falsely claimed the Supreme Court’s Obergefell v. Hodges ruling restricts free speech rights of anti-LGBTQ advocates.

—Alongside Associate Justice Clarence Thomas, Alito attacked the court’s 2015 Obergefell decision when they declined to hear a case brought by Kentucky county clerk Kim Davis. The two justices wrote that Davis “may have been one of the first victims of this court’s cavalier treatment of religion in its Obergefell decision,” and described the “consequences for religious liberty” as “ruinous.” They also wrote that the Obergefell decision “enables courts and governments to brand religious adherents who believe that marriage is between one man and one woman as bigots, making their religious liberty concerns that much easier to dismiss.”

—Dissented in the Obergefell case, writing that bans on same-sex marriage promote procreation and the ideal environment for raising children. He also wrote that those who oppose marriage equality “will risk being labeled as bigots and treated as such by governments, employers, and schools,” leading to “bitter and lasting wounds.”

—Along with Associate Justice Brett Kavanaugh, Alito posed for a photo with anti-LGBTQ activists Brian Brown, Catholic Cardinal Gerhard Müller and Princess Gloria von Thurn und Taxis.