Letters to the Editor: Clarence Thomas has an agenda. Isn’t that judicial activism?

To the editor: Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas said the court should reevaluate decisions that recognized the rights to gay marriage and contraception. So justices can have an “agenda” to target rights? I always believed they were to be neutral, waiting for cases to be presented and then evaluating them in relation to the Constitution.

The conservative justices seem to have their minds already made up and are encouraging cases to be brought before them.

For example, they could have merely ruled on the Mississippi case and left the Roe vs. Wade in place. But by a 5-4 majority, they chose to go beyond the Mississippi case to nullify the nearly 50-year-old constitutional right to an abortion.

This sounds like an agenda, and the three newly installed justices deceived Congress regarding this. When does the deception end?

Cheryl Shrock, Tustin

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To the editor: Passing a federal law to protect rights like access to contraception is exactly the wrong approach, for many reasons. A future Congress could repeal such a law on a whim, and the current Supreme Court would be motivated to strike it down on dubious grounds.

In addition, having such protections would dull the current momentum for change.

Republicans have been willing to play the long game, tolerating a situation they hated while they whipped up resentment so that they could get what they wanted. Democrats need to learn from that playbook.

The Supreme Court has painted itself into a corner; either it must allow states to outlaw contraception (creating a backlash that will overwhelm the justices) or it will have to invent the most specious reasoning yet. Progress will win in the end, but we can bring it about more quickly with patience and intelligent strategy than by reacting to every new travesty.

Geoff Kuenning, Claremont

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To the editor: The 18th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was repealed by the 21st. Let’s hope a similar fate doesn’t befall the 19th Amendment.

Ladies, before we also lose our right to vote, let’s be sure that our voices are heard loudly at the ballot box. November is not too many months away. Either a candidate supports a woman’s sole ownership of her reproductive organs or believes that the government does. Let’s not accept “weasel words” intended to mislead or pacify us.

Gentlemen, while the fight is primarily about women’s very lives, you are also involved. For every woman who doesn’t want to become a mother at a particular time, there’s most likely a man who doesn’t want to become a father and have to pay child support for 18 years.

It’s our lives and your wallets. So, join us in November.

Betty Rome, Culver City