Billy Eichner Calls Out Clarence Thomas and Other Homophobes

Actor-writer Billy Eichner used Sunday’s MTV Video Music Awards to make a political statement, calling out homophobes who want to take away marriage equality and other rights.

Eichner, introducing Panic! at the Disco, mentioned Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas’s expressed wish to overturn the 2015 ruling that established marriage equality nationwide. Thomas made the statement in his concurring opinion in the June ruling that reversed Roe v. Wade’s guarantee of legal abortion in every state, and he also said he’d like to overturn decisions that enshrined rights to contraception and same-sex intimacy.

Related: Watch the NSFW Trailer for Billy Eichner’s Queer Rom-Com Bros Here

Eichner mentioned his new film Bros, a gay romantic comedy; he’s the star and co-writer. “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,” he said. “And I need you all there in theaters on September 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.” Eichner received loud cheers for his comments.

Bros centers on a romance between Eichner’s commitment-phobic Bobby and Luke Macfarlane’s Aaron. Others in the case include Amanda Bearse, Harvey Fierstein, Bowen Yang, Ts Madison, Symone, Miss Lawrence, Guillermo Diaz, and Guy Branum. Director Nicholas Stoller collaborated on the screenplay with Eichner.