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After denouncing Roe V. Wade's impending reversal, Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot is defending herself against conservatives who claim she was inciting violence by calling the LGBTQ+ community to action.
In response to the Supreme Court's leaked draft opinion, Lightfoot tweeted on Monday (May 9), “To my friends in the LGBTQ+ community—the Supreme Court is coming for us next. This moment has to be a call to arms.” Days after Lightfoot's tweet, various conservative figures accused the Chicago mayor of putting SCOTUS justices in danger, NBC News reports.
Republican Representative Lauren Boebert told Fox New's Sean Hannity on Wednesday (May 11), “If anyone in America is an insurrectionist, it’s little Lori.”
Later that day, Lightfoot shut down her conservative critics and clarified that her "call to arms" comment wasn't meant to be taken literally. Lightfoot said she intended to "sound the alarm" that other LGBTQ+ protections could be at risk.
“These are the same damn people who were in on January 6 insurrection, where people were injured and died,” Lightfoot said on Wednesday. “So the irony of these people acting like they have any legitimacy in attacking our word choice when they have tried to foment an insurrection against our democracy? It’s beyond hypocritical. It’s ludicrous. They have no legitimacy to criticize anyone.”
On Thursday (May 12), Republican Senator Marco Rubio claimed Lightfoot's tweet was a part of a "coordinated campaign" to take down Supreme Court justices.
“The comments made by the president’s staff and members of the Democratic Party threaten the safety of members of the Court,” Rubio wrote in a letter to the Justice Department.
Lightfoot said the leaked draft showed that SCOTUS justices were inclined to ignore precedent, which puts other protections at risk.
“This is going to be the first of many rollbacks of rights that have been recognized by the Supreme Court on a number of different sides for women’s rights and LGBTQ rights," she said.
As a gay Black woman, Lightfoot added, “I’m on the menu."
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