Watch: Supreme Court Justice Alito Once Again Blasts Marriage Equality

Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito gave an address to the conservative Federalist Society in which he recalled his thinking for opposing the Court's 2015 ruling that legalized marriage equality and blasted the ruling anew, CNN reports.

The essence of his objection, then and now? Legal marriage equality on the federal level might mean that religious people would be called bigots if they wished to prevent gay and lesbian couples from marrying because of religious convictions those couples might not share.

" 'I could see,' he said, where the decision would lead for those who 'cling to traditional views on marriage,' " the CNN story said: They would end up being " 'labeled as bigots and treated as such by governments, employers and schools.' "

And that, Alito asserted, is exactly what's happened. He went on to frame marriage rights for same-sex couples as a matter of free expression when it comes to those who wish to deny them such rights, saying, "One of the great challenges for the Supreme Court going forward will be to protect freedom of speech."

Alito went further still, reported Politico, in trying to draw parallels to the way Japanese Americans were forced into internment camps after the attack in Pearl Harbor in 1941.

"Is our country going to follow that course?" the jurist wondered, going on to say, "For many today, religious liberty is not a cherished freedom. It's often just an excuse for bigotry and can't be tolerated, even when there is no evidence that anybody has been harmed."

Alito added: "The question we face is whether our society will be inclusive enough to tolerate people with unpopular religious beliefs."

Last month, Alito and fellow Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas seemed to signal an invitation for the 2015 ruling to be challenged before the court, The New York Times reported. Thomas wrote an opinion, which Alito joined, that agreed with the court's decision not to hear an appeal from Kim Davis, the former country clerk from Kentucky who had refused to issue same-sex couples marriage licenses after the 2015 ruling and had ordered the clerks under her to follow suit. Davis was jailed briefly, faced a lawsuit, and later lost a bid to be re-elected to that post.

But the opinion simultaneously seemed to take up Davis' cause, claiming that marriage equality should not have been granted because Thomas wrote, "Obergefell enables courts and governments to brand religious adherents who believe that marriage is between one man and one woman as bigots, making their religious liberty concerns that much easier to dismiss."

Tomas added: "In other words, Obergefell was read to suggest that being a public official with traditional Christian values was legally tantamount to invidious discrimination toward homosexuals."

Thomas claimed that "By choosing to privilege a novel constitutional right over the religious liberty interests explicitly protected in the First Amendment, and by doing so undemocratically, the court has created a problem that only it can fix" - presumably by hearing a challenge to marriage equality and then rescinding marriage rights from non-heterosexual couples.

In the same speech to the Federalist Society, CNN reported, Alito also attacked governmental measures to attempt to slow the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic, calling the measures that some governors and mayors put in place to combat the disease "previously unimaginable restrictions on individual liberty."

Alito "pointed to emergency orders over the summer where the court sided with officials who sought to restrict the number of people who could worship in person and he lambasted his colleagues for ruling in favor of state and local officials even when he thought churches were being treated differently from other entities that had fewer restrictions," CNN said.

Alito made his address to the Federalist Society address remotely, via Zoom.

Watch Alito's address below.