Conservative commentator John Podhoretz called a pastor "actively evil" for expressing concerns about Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett's interracial family while the future of birthright citizenship was still uncertain.
Right-wing pastor Joel Webbon posted the concerns on June 29 on X alongside a photo of Barrett's multiracial family, which includes two adopted Black children. Webbon claimed that made it impossible for her to be impartial in the citizenship case.
"Because of an interracial family, my grandchildren may not get to have a country," Webbon wrote. "Adopting children of another race/nationality is biblically permissible, and in some cases, may be even commendable. The real problem is that women make great mothers, not civil magistrates."
He posted the day before the U.S. Supreme Court upheld birthright citizenship in a 6-3 ruling, with Barrett casting one of the deciding votes.
After the court upheld birthright citizenship, Podhoretz lashed out.
"Wow. You are actively evil, and the fact that you minister to a flock is a tragedy for your community and all of humankind," he wrote on X.
"What's crazy is that this is obviously extremely racist but it's also still euphemism," The Atlantic staff writer Adam Serwer wrote on Bluesky. "What he means is if he ever has to see someone who isn't white he 'doesn't have a country,' it is not about rights or citizenship but race purity which even edgelords are still queasy about expressing directly."
"…Their model of 'rights' is 'we are oppressed when denied the right to be a racial overclass,'" he continued.
Webbon, who hosts the Right Response Ministries podcast, has previously argued that interracial marriage falls outside God's "normative design."
