The freedom of two people to engage in sexual relations is not a federal constitutional issue? The fact the Texas legislature criminalized conduct for homosexuals and not hetereosexuals is not a federal constitutional issue? Oh how we would disagree.
A restriction on the right to engage in sexual relations surely does inplicate not just the Due Process Clause, but also the line of cases including Griswold and Romer. While I agree with Scalia that the fuzzy logic and their refusal to use the standard Constitutional tests in these types of cases by the majority were wrong, I would not agree that there is no Constitutional issue here.
Add to that the blatant attempt to the Texas legislature to discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation, which surely implicates the Equal Protection Clause, and you definitely have Constitutional Issues.
No, it had everything to do with protecting the rights of the citizens of the United States from the bigoted, and unconstitutional, actions of a bigoted legislature.
Let’s not forget that Scalia also said that the majority had taken sides in a “culture war,” and that hey had signed on to “the homosexual agenda.” Not that he has anything against homosexuals. :rolleyes:
See, don’t you feel better now, Bricker? Enabling you to do that is, after all, one of the things that the Pit is all about. Now get the fuck over yourself, already.
Bull fucking shit. Members of the judiciary have traditionally (and rightfully, IMO) been held to far higher standards of civility and decorum than other public figures. I have no desire to see the third branch descend into the political cesspool that characterizes so much of the other two branches. But I guess if you’re a conservative activist who wants to hijack the courts for your own political purposes ( :rolleyes: ), that’s just part of the package, isn’t it?
I concede that Scalia’s patent homophobia, and his context of pandering to other homophobes–makes this even more distasteful to me. But I also assure you that if David Souter went in front of People For the American Way and mocked Scalia’s dissent the way Scalia did with the Court’s majority, I would most certainly condemn his doing so. Fortunately, Souter is by all apearances not a reprehensible turd.
Well, that’s the point, isn’t it? Scalia’s is an arrogant, egomaniacal prick. Souter’s not. Scalia publicly disparages his colleagues’ integrity and intelligence. Souter doesn’t.
Funny thing you should mention Souter, minty because he made one of my favorite comments about Scalia, in BOARD OF ED. OF KIRYAS JOEL v. GRUMET, when he said:
And some people think he doesn’t have a personality.
Damn, you are the King of Contextualization today, aren’t you? It is the sum total of the context that shows Scalia wallowing in the political mud: the partisan political audience, the mockery of the majority, the pandering to the homophobes, the overall level of contempt for his colleagues and everyone else who disagrees with the Almighty Justice Scalia. You can’t just look at each one of those in isolation and declare that it proves the man’s shit don’t stink.
As with my response to Bricker above, I would most certainly complain if they went before those groups and conducted themselves in a manner similar to Scalia. And in point of fact, I would generally prefer that the justices not address such political groups. Indeed, I believe they do so fairly rarely, precisely because they wish to avoid the appearance (or in Scalia’s case, the fact) of wallowing in the political pigsty.
I refer you to the statement of the gentleman from Libertaria: “So, if I mock your posts, it means that I am not mocking you? If I read your post to my wife with my nose curled, imitating a fat old snobby English fop, I am not mocking you?”
Wrong. We are posters on a message board. Scalia is a justice on the United States Supreme Court. That, my friend, makes all the difference in the world.
I am not accusing you of wanting to physically prevent Scalia from speaking - this is a topic that has not arisen on this board. But you seem to be endorsing the idea that Scalia must voluntarily refrain from expressing his position, because Otto regards it as harmful “bile”. One man’s bile is another man’s considered and judicious opinion. The general concept of toleration is that we allow everyone to express their opinion, and let the marketplace of ideas determine if it is in fact bile or a considered and judicious opinion.
In other words, Scalia thinks two men fucking in their own home should be illegal but you have to bust in the door to catch them instead of using thermal imaging. Such the titan of individual liberties he.
Otto, there’s no need to fall for Rhum Runner’s pointless diversion. Scalia’s position on a search and seizure issue has nothing at all to do with his position and rhetoric in Lawrence, much less his contemptuous public behavior last night.
Izzy, when someone is speaking as a private citizen, you’re right. When he is speaking as someone who has the authority to act on his bile, some more demanding standards have to apply, don’t they?
Please point out exactly where you think I’m saying that my standards of bile should prevail.
For the THIRD time then…
Scalia is powerful. minty is not powerful. With power should come an increased awareness of how one is perceived. Scalia, being someone who exercises enourmous influence over the state of the world, should be really extra-special careful.
Scalia can say whatever he wants, subject to the laws of the land that he and his brethren past and present have interpreted. He can also expect by dint of his position to be held to a somewhat higher standard than an unknown lawyer in Texas.
I feel like I’ve been damning minty in my efforts to support him. Sorry minty, you know I love ya more’n my luggage.
And where has Scalia said that breaking down the door of a home/apartment without a warrant constitutionally permissible? You need to reread Kyllo. And the facts of Lawrence. Lawrence never raised a 4th amendment violation defense to the criminal conviction. I bet if the police were randomly busting down doors in Houston looking for gay sex to prosecute, Scalia would have been the first one to slap them down for such a clear 4th Amendment violation, same way he did the cops using the thermal search technology.
“Sum total” my ass. You’re just piling on the pejorative rhetoric. All Scalia did was give a speech before a conservative think tank in which he read portions of one particular opinion in a less-than-neutral tone. That’s it. Nothing more. You can spin to your heart’s delight, but that’s all there is.
Allow me to translate your rhetoric:
“Partisan political audience” = people who agree with Scalia on constitutional mattters.
“Mockery of the majority” = Reading the majority opinion in a tone somewhere shy of total reverence.
“Pandering to the homophobes” = Deciding not to join the majority in Lawrence.
“Overall contempt for his colleagues and everyone else who dares disagree with Almihty Justice Scalia” = having the temerity to hold a minority viewpoint, and having the further temerity to actually say your viewpoint is right and your opponents are wrong. **
And what manner might that be? All we really have to go on is one AP reporter’s opinion that Scalia adopted an irreverent tone while reading certain passages from the majority opinion. That could well mean anything.
Indeed, if I’m giving a speech on why I think Lawrence was poorly decided, and I read a passage that I find particularly absurd so that I might critique it, I’d find it hard to read that passage in a way that couldn’t conceivably be construed as “mocking.” **
Your preference be damned, justices do give these sorts of speeches from time to time. Given that you haven’t shown that Scalia does so more frequently than his fellow justices, I have to think you’re singling him out because you’re a whiny partisan bitch. **
I refer you to my response to the gentleman from Libertaria: Correct, and correct. I can respect the intellect of a justice even if I think some of his opinions are stupid and worthy of mocking. **
You miss the point. If your opponent makes an absurd point, it is perfectly within bounds to mock it as a means of showing its absurdity. That is no less true for judges than it is for others.
Are you talking to me? My only point in raising Kyllo was to point out that Scalia, contrary to some of the accusations being made here, is sensitive to individual rights. Provided those rights have some foundation in the Constitution. There have been some very broad condemnations of the man here, and contrary to Minty’s position, it is not a “pointless diverstion” to discuss other opinions that the man has written.
Perhaps Justice O’Connor’s “more searching” rational basis test (from Lawrence) is one you prefer, personally I have no idea what that is supposed to mean. When is the rational basis test to be searching, not merely rational?
Even though this is the Pit, it may be time to pull the rhetoric down a bit. The Supreme Court is different. It has been afforded a level of deference that no other public institution can aspire to. The acceptance of the court’s decisions are dependent on that level of deference. While it is perfectly appropriate for members of the public, legal scholars, officials of the other two branches of government, and pundits with an agenda to spin to publicly criticize the court and its workings, the respect and honor the court must have to do its work cannot survive if members of the court itself go out into public forums to criticize the courts decisions. It is even worse when a member of the court goes to a private function for people who don’t much like the court’s decisions and acts as a cheerleader for the critics.
A justice of the Supreme Court has one place to criticize the court’s decisions and that is it his own opinions. Justice Scalia does not appear to be content to do that. To take his complaints out side the court’s chambers is just inappropriate and destructive of the institution. Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. was called The Great Dissenter. He did not go out to the local meetings of the Grand Army of the Republic or of the Republican Party to rage at, mock and generally attack the decisions from which he dissented.
I suspect that Justice Scalia is so convinced that he alone is right and that anyone who disagrees with him is a fool or a scoundrel that he does no feel constrained to observe the conventions for public comment. This does not bode well for the court. It does not bode well for the law. Remember the court cannot enforce its own decisions. It is dependent on the police powers of the Executive and the good will and respect of the people to have its rulings given effect. To the extent that any Justice’s public comments detract from that public respect and injure the sense that the court speaks from honest evaluation of the fundamental rules that Justice does himself and the court a disservice.