Originally Posted By Dabob2 As much as I think that Scalia would sooner slit his wrists (or Anthony Kennedy's) than serve on a panel, even in dissent, that affirmed marriage equality - his comments on the subject and on gay people generally are some of the nastiest words you will ever read in an official SCOTUS decision, e.g. in the Lawrence v. Texas decision... I'm heartened by the case they chose on DOMA: "The justices chose for their review the case of 83-year-old Edith Windsor, who sued to challenge a $363,000 federal estate tax bill after her partner of 44 years died in 2009. Windsor, who goes by Edie, married Thea Spyer in 2007 after doctors told them that Spyer would not live much longer. She suffered from multiple sclerosis for many years. Spyer left everything she had to Windsor. There is no dispute that if Windsor had been married to a man, her estate tax bill would have been $0. The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New York agreed with a district judge that the provision of DOMA deprived Windsor of the constitutional guarantee of equal protection." It's an case that's easy to understand for just about anyone - if Windsor had married a man, no estate tax. Because she married a woman, $363,000 federal estate tax bill. That ain't equal. They could choose to rule on Prop 8 very narrowly. And of course, they could rule the wrong way on either or both. Part of me, in fact, was hoping they wouldn't hear these yet, and we'd get a couple more Obama-appointed justices before that happened. (Ginsberg will probably be the first to retire, so that will be a wash, but Scalia or Thomas could be next, or Kennedy could be replaced with a solid liberal). Everyone will be looking to Kennedy here, but who knows - maybe Roberts will surprise again. And get HIS wrists slit by Scalia...
Originally Posted By SuperDry <<< As much as I think that Scalia would sooner slit his wrists (or Anthony Kennedy's) than serve on a panel, even in dissent, that affirmed marriage equality - his comments on the subject and on gay people generally are some of the nastiest words you will ever read in an official SCOTUS decision, e.g. in the Lawrence v. Texas decision. >>> What are these nasty words to which you refer? I didn't read his entire dissent, but the quotes in the Wiki don't seem particularly nasty. One thing I did find amusing was his slippery-slope argument, that among other things, if homosexual sodomy were to be declared a right that states can't ban, the same might eventually happen to masturbation. How frightened Scalia must be to think of a time in the future where masturbation was legal in all 50 states.
Originally Posted By Dabob2 LOL. Well, I'm not sure what you consider nasty (and I understand you didn't read the whole thing), but... In his dissent in Lawrence, Scalia said the majority of the court "has largely signed on to the so-called homosexual agenda, by which I mean the agenda promoted by some homosexual activists directed at eliminating the moral opprobrium that has traditionally attached to homosexual conduct," which sounds to me like he feels that that moral opprobrium is completely justified and indeed a good thing to continue. He went on: "Many Americans do not want persons who openly engage in homosexual conduct as partners in their business, as scoutmasters for their children, as teachers in their children's schools, or as boarders in their home. They view this as protecting themselves and their families from a lifestyle that they believe to be immoral and destructive. The Court views it as "discrimination" which it is the function of our judgments to deter. So imbued is the Court with the law profession's anti-anti-homosexual culture, that it is seemingly unaware that the attitudes of that culture are not obviously "mainstream" [and] that in most States what the Court calls "discrimination" against those who engage in homosexual acts is perfectly legal." And so here it's not enough just to view gay conduct as icky, it's perfectly justified to discriminate against gay people in employment or housing or other areas having nothing to do with actual sexual conduct. (This reminds me of the arguments, particularly in the 90's, in favor of keeping the ban on openly gay people in the armed forces. Essentially: a lot of people don't like gay people and wouldn't want to serve with them - thus using bigotry to justify continuing the bigotry, as indeed was done in the 40's the justify continued racial segregation in the armed forces.) And in addition to the slippery slope argument on marriage, he said the decision "effectively decrees the end of all morals legislation — if, as the Court asserts, the promotion of majoritarian sexual morality is not even a legitimate state interest." And of course, undoubtedly the passage you found: "State laws against bigamy, same-sex marriage, adult incest, prostitution, masturbation, adultery, fornication, bestiality, and obscenity are likewise sustainable only in light of Bowers’ validation of laws based on moral choices. Every single one of these laws is called into question by today’s decision; the Court makes no effort to cabin the scope of its decision to exclude them from its holding." So essentially the Santorum school of "reasoning" - if gay people can have sex perfectly legally, how can Fido possibly be safe? He also took the highly unusual step of insisting on reading portions of his dissent from the bench (as opposed to just having it be published), because he felt so strongly about this (in his view) bad decision. He has also said in public (to the American Enterprise Institute) when asked his opinion on gay rights in general: "Homosexual sodomy? Come on. For 200 years, it was criminal in every state." Note that he said this just two months ago, indicating his opinion on Lawrence is unlikely to have changed. In his dissent on Romer v. Evans (striking down Colorado's anti-gay amendment to its constitution, which disallowed any CO city from even enacting anti-discrimination laws for hiring or housing, as Boulder and some others had done), Scalia said the amendment was "a modest attempt by seemingly tolerant Coloradans to preserve traditional sexual mores against the efforts of a politically powerful minority to revise those mores through use of the laws." And he was shocked that the majority should disagree with him, saying "But though Coloradans are, as I say, entitled to be hostile toward homosexual conduct..." "There is a problem, however, which arises when criminal sanction of homosexuality is eliminated but moral and social disapprobation of homosexuality is meant to be retained. The Court cannot be unaware of that problem; it is evident in many cities of the country, and occasionally bubbles to the surface of the news, in heated political disputes over such matters as the introduction into local schools of books teaching that homosexuality is an optional and fully acceptable "alternate life style." The problem (a problem, that is, for those who wish to retain social disapprobation of homosexuality) is that, because those who engage in homosexual conduct tend to reside in disproportionate numbers in certain communities, have high disposable income, and of course care about homosexual-rights issues much more ardently than the public at large, they possess political power much greater than their numbers, both locally and statewide. Quite understandably, they devote this political power to achieving not merely a grudging social toleration, but full social acceptance, of homosexuality." Putting aside the since disproven idea that gay people somehow have "high disposable income" (or even higher than that of straights)... these are the words of someone who IMO is pretty clearly letting personal animus color his decisions. Now of course, in all cases he's using high falutin' language, but to me it's a pretty nasty view of gay people in general as people entirely worthy of decent peoples' opprobrium. Saying that Dred Scott had no rights "that a white man need respect" isn't nasty on its face either, but reveals the bigotry of the people making that statement.
