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Fri 24 Oct, 2003 06:34 am
WASHINGTON - Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia (news - web sites) ridiculed his court's recent ruling legalizing gay sex, telling an audience of conservative activists Thursday that the ruling ignores the Constitution in favor of a modern, liberal sensibility.
The ruling, Scalia said, "held to be a constitutional right what had been a criminal offense at the time of the founding and for nearly 200 years thereafter."
Scalia adopted a mocking tone to read from the court's June ruling that struck down state antisodomy laws in Texas and elsewhere.
Scalia wrote a bitter dissent in the gay sex case that was longer than the ruling itself.
On Thursday, Scalia said judges, including his colleagues on the Supreme Court, throw over the original meaning of the Constitution when it suits them.
I would like to hear Scalia's line of thought on this one. To the best of my recollection, the issue isn't addressed in the most pheriphical way. I can follow a fairly strict constructionist line of thought, but the generally accepted mores of the eighteenth century were never before herded into the constitution.
Can one take it then, that Scalia disparages the 13th Amendment? After all, slavery was legal at the time of the ratification of the constitution.
Somebody please build a time machine and get rid of this clown.
Setanta wrote:Can one take it then, that Scalia disparages the 13th Amendment? After all, slavery was legal at the time of the ratification of the constitution.
Somebody please build a time machine and get rid of this clown.
I think Scalia's position would be that there is a way to change what are or aren't "rights" under the Constitution and the passing of the 13th Amendment is an example of the proper way for that to be done.
In which case, i would wonder whether or not Mr. Scalia believes that he has useful employment.
Come now Set, clearly you can discern a difference between a court validating that a specific instance is or isn't within the meaning of thre intended words of the Constitution vs. a court that fabricates a new meaning out of thin air.
I know you fully understand (probably better than most based on your prior posts) that when the Constitution was written the issue of slavery was side-stepped.
Scalia may or may not agree with the words written in the 13th Amendment but he certianly agrees with the process of amending the Constitution as a means of making the issue (legally) clear to all as opposed to the concept frequently espoused that the justices are free to create a new meaning of the words at their whim.
Since Scalia also touts his religious background and devotion, perhaps the Justice would explain why he is not lobbying for laws that make homosexual conduct a capital offense.
His god certainly decreed that "death" should be the penalty of such an abomination.
"If a man lies with a male as with a woman, both of them shall be
put to death for their abominable deed; they have forfeited their
lives." Leviticus 20:13
Seems to me that would be the consisten avenue.
Yeah, Fishin', i know the difference. I'm being snotty about Scalia because of his gratuitous use of his particular "bully pulpit" to accuse the majority of the court of, in your phrase, "fabricate[ing] a new meaning out of thin air." As i recall, the majority opinion in that case (the Texas Sodomy law) referred to the bill of rights provision of freedom from unreasonable search and seizure. It is one thing to dissent from the majority opinion. It is quite another to read from the bench a dissentient opinion which is longer than the majority opinion, and to use it to inferentially accuse the Supremes of legislating from the bench.
I just don't like this clown, and consider him the worst of the Bush Elder legacy.
Fair enough! He'll never be anywhere on my list of "favored Justices" either. :p I to be a Constructionalist but his logic is hard to follow a lot of the time and I'm not a fan of any justice going off on their own personal tirades.
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