High-powered entertainment attorney Steve Warren demanded that Justice Clarence Thomas and the rest of the Supreme Court justices act against the Defense of Marriage Act and Prop. 8 during a stirring speech at the GLAAD Media Awards in San Francisco last night.

“Our basic civil rights are currently being experimented with in 50 different state laboratories,” said Warren, a board member of the watchdog org and recent recipient of its Stephen F. Kolzak Award. “Many of which have little or no hope of ridding themselves of the prejudice and hate that still exists in so much of our country. It pains me to think of what could have been for our relationships, including my own of 26 years, if our nation had embraced all of us, and given us the love, respect and support given to heterosexual couples, of all races. We need, we deserve and we are rightfully entitled as American citizens to be included under the shield of the equal protection clause of the 14th amendment.”

Warren took specific aim at Justice Thomas, drawing a parallel between his interracial marriage and the struggle for the same recognition for same-sex couples.

“Because the Clarence and Virginia Thomas’s of the world are accorded the protections of the U.S. Constitution and we are not,” Warren stated. “Our basic civil rights are currently being experimented with in 50 different state laboratories. Many of which have little or no hope of ridding themselves of the prejudice and hate that still exists in so much of our country. It pains me to think of what could have been for our relationships, including my own of 26 years, if our nation had embraced all of us, and given us the love, respect and support given to heterosexual couples, of all races. We need, we deserve, and we are rightfully entitled as American citizens to be included under the shield of the equal protection clause of the 14th amendment.”