Scalia quizzed at NJ's Princeton on gay issue
PRINCETON, N.J. (AP) — U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia on Monday found himself defending his legal writings that some find offensive and anti-gay.
Speaking at Princeton University, Scalia was asked by a gay student why he equates laws banning sodomy with those barring bestiality and murder.
"I don't think it's necessary, but I think it's effective," Scalia said, adding that legislative bodies can ban what they believe to be immoral.
Scalia has been giving speeches around the country to promote his new book, "Reading Law," and his lecture at Princeton comes just days after the court agreed to take on two cases that challenge the federal Defense of Marriage Act, which defines marriage as between a man and a woman.
Some in the audience who had come to hear Scalia speak about his book applauded but more of those who attended the lecture clapped at Hosie's question.
"It's a form of argument that I thought you would have known, which is called the 'reduction to the absurd,'" Scalia told freshman Duncan Hosie of San Francisco during the question-and-answer period. "If we cannot have moral feelings against homosexuality, can we have it against murder? Can we have it against other things?"
Scalia said he is not equating sodomy with murder but drawing a parallel between the bans on both.
Then he deadpanned: "I'm surprised you aren't persuaded."
Hosie said afterward that he was not persuaded by Scalia's answer. He said he believes Scalia's writings tend to "dehumanize" gays.
As Scalia often does in public speaking, he cracked wise, taking aim mostly at those who view the Constitution as a "living document" that changes with the times.
"It isn't a living document," Scalia said. "It's dead, dead, dead, dead."
He said that people who see the Constitution as changing often argue they are taking the more flexible approach. But their true goal is to set policy permanently, he said.
"My Constitution is a very flexible one," he said. "There's nothing in there about abortion. It's up to the citizens. ... The same with the death penalty."
Scalia said that interpreting laws requires adherence to the words used and to their meanings at the time they were written.
Speaking at Princeton University, Scalia was asked by a gay student why he equates laws banning sodomy with those barring bestiality and murder.
"I don't think it's necessary, but I think it's effective," Scalia said, adding that legislative bodies can ban what they believe to be immoral.
Scalia has been giving speeches around the country to promote his new book, "Reading Law," and his lecture at Princeton comes just days after the court agreed to take on two cases that challenge the federal Defense of Marriage Act, which defines marriage as between a man and a woman.
Some in the audience who had come to hear Scalia speak about his book applauded but more of those who attended the lecture clapped at Hosie's question.
"It's a form of argument that I thought you would have known, which is called the 'reduction to the absurd,'" Scalia told freshman Duncan Hosie of San Francisco during the question-and-answer period. "If we cannot have moral feelings against homosexuality, can we have it against murder? Can we have it against other things?"
Scalia said he is not equating sodomy with murder but drawing a parallel between the bans on both.
Then he deadpanned: "I'm surprised you aren't persuaded."
Hosie said afterward that he was not persuaded by Scalia's answer. He said he believes Scalia's writings tend to "dehumanize" gays.
As Scalia often does in public speaking, he cracked wise, taking aim mostly at those who view the Constitution as a "living document" that changes with the times.
"It isn't a living document," Scalia said. "It's dead, dead, dead, dead."
He said that people who see the Constitution as changing often argue they are taking the more flexible approach. But their true goal is to set policy permanently, he said.
"My Constitution is a very flexible one," he said. "There's nothing in there about abortion. It's up to the citizens. ... The same with the death penalty."
Scalia said that interpreting laws requires adherence to the words used and to their meanings at the time they were written.
According to his logic we can ban anything that anyone thinks is immoral. Yet he voted to outlaw Obamacare. Like anybody else he picks and chooses what he finds constitutional or not based upon his political decisions, then uses big words and phrases to make him seem smarter than the rest. Homosexuality is not murder or rape or torture. Not even close and he knows it. Yet he seems to forget that the founding fathers set up a government that would allow for minority opinions to exist and that would hopefully prevent an oppressive, overpowering government.
Agree or disagree with Justice Scalia, he is by far one of the most interesting justices the Supreme Court has ever had. He writes opinions that are witty, pointed, and all-around thought provoking to the point that it invokes strong feelings in the reader. He's doing his job.
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As a side note, in case you did not know, Justice Scalia is very close friends with Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Keep that one for trivia night.
Only a progressive would consider Scalia "activist". A normal person of reason would see he is an originalism follower. Other terms assigned to the supremes are just political BS, depending on your persuation. Whether you agree with him on some issues, or disagree, his wit and common sense makes for an interesting read. Â
Look up the words pompous and arrogent and you will find his picture (next to a picture of Donald Trump).
Show of hands, please, of all those surprised by Scalia's statements?
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*crickets*
Rather fascinating comments here, a very good read. THIS is what these forums are for, not most of that other flame throwing crap. Thanks everyone!
If there was ever an "activist" judge, here is the shining example. Unfortunately. He is supposed to be a judge but his opinions are decided before he ever even hears arguments. At the same time, I find him fascinating.
Well, being for equality for everyone, as demonstrated by my hundreds of previous posts to such, its painful to say this, but Scalia is correct in his argument that legislatures are free to outlaw things they find morally objective. Its done all the time. Drugs, alcohol rules, many thousands of other acts are outlawed because the legislature finds them immoral. So the anger we all have toward Scalia right now indeed belongs to the legislatures.
It's always reassuring when a justice of the Supreme Court of the US gives such a positive assurance that he is truly impartial and has not prejudged any case that comes before him.
When Mr. Justice Scalia is involved, forget principle...
 @OrcasThunder Well, OT, in all fairness, again, Scalia is not impartial and neither are the other 8 Justices. He is going on principle, even though it is one you disagree with.Â
 @marvin What principle is that? Reaching a verdict prior to hearing the case?
Has Scalia EVER offered a ruling that wasn't locked into his narrow POV? Isn't a justice supposed to be impartial and actually consider both sides?
 @OrcasThunder OT, you can ask the same of any of the 9. Why is it that 99% of the time, its easy for court observers to know what a verdict will be and peg it to within one vote where it'll end up? Because the Justices do not at almost any time go in to a case impartial and considering both sides. Even in the recent ObamaCare case, the only reason it passed at all was because Robert was "convinced" to change his mind after originally voting against it. And look what a shock wave one single Justice on one single vote sent when he did actually consider both sides. You can't pinpoint Scalia (I don't defend the man himself, you'll notice) when all nine Justices are the same.
Lawrence vs Texas was a 6-3 decision. And Scalia needs to stop whining about it. It reminds me of the Catholic Church that needs 500 years to exonerate Copernicus or Galilei. And, btw, the constitution is not a dead document. It is living in that it has provided for changes to be made, if a vast majority desire these changes. Amendments anyone?   Â
 @Komo Dragon I believe that his view is if you want to change the Constitution, to change it via Amendment.
 @Getov Mylon it's the only way. The point he makes, and I can partially subscribe to it, is that certain laws need not be governed by the constitution, but by federal and state law, voted for by the people. The constitution is to set the framework, the umbrella if you wish. Sodomy laws, state laws, were found to be unconstitutional.  Â
If you do not support homosexual lifestyle, you are dehumanizing gays according to gays and gay supporters.
@STK - no, you are dehumanizing gays only if you go out of your way to tell falsehoods about 'gay', insist in telling them how wrong they are and doing so in ways that if someone was to tell you that being whatever race you were was wrong that you would be made irate about it, etc.
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If you (the global 'you', not you specifically STK) speak rationally, don't sound like a overall jerk, don't sound like you're attacking the other person,  express your opinion and allow others to not only share thier opinions, but allow them to have those opinions - you wouldn't be considered dehumanizing anyone.
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The same goes for any gay supporters who attack anti-gay folks.
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Basically, whatever religion you are (or desired lack of, if that's your choice), or whatever race you are: Change 'gay' to that item in what you post. If the words used, the method of discussion would anger or enrage you if I or someone else wrote them in response to your comment - then you're crossing that line from discussion to angry attack. And if you still post that angry attack, you are truly dehumanzing the people you are attacking.
@FormerMarineSgt Be specific, what is it that is false that people are saying about gays? I am not religious. I don't believe in gay marriage and I don't believe in using tax dollars to support gay weddings and I don't believe in forcing other states or other countries for gay marriage. Gays have every rights as heterosexuals. Always have and always will.
 @Getov Mylon  @STK Ah ha!  We'll call it MarvinCare (copyright pending). Either pretty up your chick to a 4 or above or pay the MarvinCare tax.Â
 @marvin  @STK Pshaw. Under the Constitution, you can't ban those under a 4. But... you could TAX them and it would be permissible under the Roberts Ruling on the ACA.
 @STK  Yes, STK, I too find ugly chicks in bad taste. Guys shouldn't marry them. Let's outlaw ugly chicks. I'd say below a 4 is in order, eh?
 @STK  @FormerMarineSgt "gays have every rights as heterosexuals" - that's like saying "women have every right as men".  Guess what, women are not men, and gays are not heteros. Never have and never will.
 @STK    What does "law" have to do with "good taste"?
@marvin @FormerMarineSgt Yes civil right. Do you believe in good taste and standard?
 @STK  @FormerMarineSgt Do you believe in civil rights?
 @STK sodomy laws criminalized them, so yes it needed be overturned...
I see it's the usual idiocy from Scalia.  Ignoring the factual legal differences between legislating morality and legislating other behaviors.Â
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Here's the difference Mr. Scalia. I'm frankly shocked that you can't tell the difference:
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'Morality' Laws banning certain acts ban two consenting people from performing an act where no harm to either individual occurs. For 'gay' (aka sodomy as he seems to prefer to call it) - the relationship and resulting sex is absolutely legal if it were performed between to consenting opposite sex adults, and no one is being harmed.
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Other laws banning certain acts are created because the banned act involves one individual taking away the rights of another, or one individual commiting harm to another person or that person's property.Â
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 In Murder, you are taking away the rights to 'being alive' from the other person.   You are creating harm to that other individual.
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In 'being gay', you are having a consentual love affair, getting married and/or having consentual sexual relations that if it were happening with a person of the opposite sex would otherwise be legal/allowed. No one is harmed, no rights are taken away from anyone.   Even if you disagree with or hate gay, you cannot argue that simply being gay or being 'gay married' can be defined in a court of law as anything other than that.
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If Scalia can't see that basic, simple legal difference, then he's not fit to be a defense attorney, or even a dog catcher, let alone being completely unqualified to be a Supreme Court Justice.
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I don't care whether you agree with 'gay' or not - no one can see this idiocy about morality being able to be constitutionally legislated as anything but the most stupid prattle from a brain dead so-called expert.
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Regardless of his views he, himself, appears to be arrogant and offensive if the picture above is any indication regarding his position on rulings of the Supreme Court and his overblown self esteem. After reading his views in this article and others one could easily be led to believe that any act that two individuals choose to do in private or any class of citizenry could be considered immoral simply by not living up to the standards of those deemed in judgement of others via a legislative body which can be quite arbitrary in law passing, i.e. the Jim Crow Laws that that legalized segregation in much of the South up through much of the 1960s.Â
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This is stretching it a bit but one could conceivably consider legal what a legislative body considers immoral such as with interracial marriage, or marriages of much a much older individual with a much younger or even make a holocaust legal similar to that of the Nazis in trying exterminate the Jewish population prior to and during WWII. After all, the great USA had its own holocaust with the effort to exterminate Native Americans using Manifest Destiny as the rallying cray and it is this American Land of the Free Supreme Court that ruled it was constitutional to put Japanese American Citizens in concentration camps after Pearl Harbor.  Does that make the rulings of the Supreme Court always moral and just and right regardless of perceived liberal or conservative rulings?
@growlerxrunner - very few laws are actually based on morals.  They are actually based on people's rights and damage inflicted upon those rights. Your right to live trumps someone else's desire to kill you,   Your right to your possessions thief who wants to steal your possessions and so on.
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Scalia's moronic 'morals' law statement is so un-legally based that it shocks me completely. Morals laws are based on not allowing something to happen that is against society's norm, and where the banned item or action causes no harm to others.  Example: Jim Crowe laws were racist laws enshrined by society as proper 'morals'. Same with the anti-mixed race marriage laws. Â
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However, Murder, theft, burglary, speeding, etc. All are laws based on either punishing someone who has taken away or damaged the rights of another individual (killing someone takes way thier right to live...)  -or- have by their action have created great risk of harm of taking away or damaging other people's rights (speeding, anti-drunk driving laws, etc.).
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'Gay' and 'mixed race marriage' and many other things are conditions where when otherwise legal (consenting adults, etc, etc.), no legal harm is created, no rights are taken away by the act being allowed. These are things that at one point in history 'simply weren't done', therefore they were made illegal by law.
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It shocks me to see a Supreme Court Justice so ignorant and / or intolerant of actual law standards and precedents.
 @FormerMarineSgt Drugs, age restrictions on anything, prostitution, zoning laws are all based on the morals of society.
 @marvin  @FormerMarineSgt But the "morality" arguments have also been used like I describe above...
Yes, there are some common sense uses for it, but when it is backed by scripture it loses it's value.
 @OrcasThunder  @FormerMarineSgt No, I mean the laws that keep strip clubs out of the elementary school parking lot.
 @marvin  @FormerMarineSgt "Zoning laws"? Oh, you mean like the old "red line" that used to keep the "N's" out of the "W" zone?