Speaking Sunday at the 2022 MTV Video
Music Awards (VMA), Billy Eichner called out the Supreme Court for
considering to revisit major LGBTQ rights cases.
In presenting Panic! At The Disco as
one of the event's performers, Eichner delivered a powerful statement
in support of LGBTQ rights.
Eichner wrote, directed, and stars in
Universal Picture's upcoming gay rom-com Bros.
“Bros is making history as the
first gay rom-com ever made by a major studio and the first where
every role is played by an openly LGBTQ actor,” Eichner told the
audience.
“And I need you all there in theaters
on Sep. 30, ‘cause we need to show all the homophobes like Clarence
Thomas and all the homophobes on the Supreme Court that we want gay
love stories and we support LGBTQ people and we are not letting them
drag us back into the last century because they are in the past and
Bros is the future.”
(Related: First
Look: Billy Eichner, Luke Macfarlane star in gay rom-com Bros.)
In a concurring opinion to the case
that struck down Roe, Justice Clarence Thomas alluded to the
Supreme Court revising other similar cases that hinge on the right to
privacy, such as the court's groundbreaking 2015 ruling in Obergefell
that ushered in nationwide same-sex marriage. Congress responded to
Thomas' opinion with a bill that seeks to protect marriage equality.
After clearing the House with GOP support, the measure has stalled in
the Senate.