CHICAGO – Mayor Lori Lightfoot is fending off conservative backlash after she tweeted that the Supreme Court’s draft opinion reversing Roe v. Wade was a “call to arms,” for those in the LGBTQ community.
Conservative figures, including Rep. Lauren Boebert of Colorado and Fox News’ Laura Ingraham, accused Lightfoot of attempting to incite violence when she tweeted on Monday, “To my friends in the LGBTQ+ community—the Supreme Court is coming for us next. This moment has to be a call to arms.
“If anyone in America is an insurrectionist, it’s little Lori,” Lauren Boebert told Fox News’ Sean Hannity on Wednesday.
In an interview with NBC News on Wednesday, Lightfoot fired back at her critics and said her tweet wasn’t meant to be interpreted literally. She said she only wanted to “sound the alarm” that other 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 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.”
In a letter to the Department of Justice on Thursday, Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., asked the department to condemn a “coordinated campaign” of intimidation and threats to U.S. Supreme Court justices, and cited Lightfoot’s tweet as an example. “The comments made by the president’s staff and members of the Democratic Party threaten the safety of members of the Court,” he said.
Lightfoot was vaulted into the national spotlight during the Donald Trump White House years when he at times directly took aim at her and Chicago crime.
She said that even before the tweet this week, she had received death threats, as well as individuals showing up outside her home.
“They come after and try to harm people like me who fight for our rights,” she said.
Lightfoot, a former federal prosecutor who was once a finalist for the U.S. Attorney position in Chicago, said that the Supreme Court draft showed that justices were willing to ignore precedent, risking a reversal of other protections.
“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,” Lightfoot said.
She also said that as a Black, married, gay woman, “I’m on the menu.”
Source: | This article originally belongs to Nbcnews.com
