Scalia’s remarks “breathtaking in their bigotry”

Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia is known for his scathing dissents, and his “textualist” views on applying the Constitution. But in a speech to Georgetown Law students on Monday, November 16, in which he said that the logic protecting gay rights might just as easily apply to child molesters.

According to The New York Times, he asked, “What minorities deserve protection? What? It’s up to me to identify deserving minorities?”

The Times went on to say, “He also allowed that the First Amendment protects political and religious minorities but suggested that there was no principled way for courts to make further distinctions based on the text of the Constitution. ‘ What about pederasts?’ he asked. ‘What about child abusers?’”

The Washington Post, in reporting on Scalia’s speech, said, “a question about whether courts have a responsibility to protect minorities that cannot win rights through the democratic process — the issue that animated the court’s landmark decision this year on same-sex marriage — brought a caustic response.

“’You either believe in a democracy or you don’t,” Scalia said. “You talk about minorities — what minorities deserve protection?’

“Religious minorities are protected by the First Amendment, Scalia said, and so are political minorities. But beyond that, he asked rhetorically, what empowers Supreme Court justices to expand the list.”

There was swift reaction to Scalia’s comments in the blogosphere. According to Advocate.com, “New Republic blogger Jeet Heer called the remarks ‘breathtaking in their bigotry’ and wrote, ‘Apparently you can be a Supreme Court justice without being able to understand the elementary distinction between consensual relationships between adults and heinous acts that by definition are coercive.’”

Scalia has dissented on every gay rights decision that has been considered, beginning with  Romer v. Evans, and continuing through this year’s marriage decision in Obergefell.

Huffington Post pointed out his dissent in Lawrence v. Texas, which decriminalized homosexuality, “Dissenting in the 2003 case Lawrence v. Texas, in which the Supreme Court ruled that Texas' ban on gay sex was unconstitutional, Scalia wrote that the state's law was akin to those prohibiting things like bigamy, incest and bestiality.”

Scalia said in the Georgetown Law speech that he thinks deciding which minorities deserve protection should be made by the democratic process rather than by judges, according to the Times.

Blogsters also jumped on that assertion. Jon Green, writing in Americablog.com said of Scalia’s comments on Monday, “This is the kind of argument that wouldn’t even merit a dismissal had it come from anyone other than a sitting Supreme Court justice, albeit one who openly admits to getting most of his news from talk radio. For one, child molestation is a rather obvious harm, whereas consenting marriage is not. Additionally, the Courts have tests in place to define deserving minorities that continue to be improved upon precisely because deserving minority groups with histories of oppression tend not to fare well at the ballot box.”

In a speech last Wednesday to Philadelphia’s Union League, Scalia questioned whether the Supreme Court expresses “the deeply felt principles of the country,” according to the Associated Press. In light of his remarks on Monday this week, the answer would have to be a resounding “No,” at least as it applies to Justice Scalia.

The Gayly - November 18, 2015 @ 10:50 a.m.