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SCOTUS: Scalia on the defensive over gay rights

Re: Justice Scalia compares homosexuality to murder.

Peter Grimm said:
He isn't doing that, though. He never says that homosexuality is similar to murder.
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Facts are are sometimes uncomfortable.
 
Re: Justice Scalia compares homosexuality to murder.

Scalia is focusing too much on "morality," which is far too nebulous a concept on which to base constitutional thinking.

We have a Constitution and a national ideology which at heart aim to preserve freedom and choice for all individuals. Choices that harm no one cannot constitutionally be prohibited---there is no rational basis for doing so. The most the anti-homosexuality argument has going for it in this regard is that MAYBE, possibly, certainly not provably, homosexuals themselves will burn in hell after they die. But banning a choice that maybe possibly but not provably hurts the decision-maker cannot pass rational basis review either.

This is obviously different from something like bestiality or murder. Scalia's ideology guides his legal reasoning, not the other way around, and that is unfortunate.
 
Re: Justice Scalia compares homosexuality to murder.

How is it that a Nixonian hack like Scalia can get a chair so early, when his intellectual superiors like Posner toil away in the rear for decades with nothing to show for it?
 
Re: Justice Scalia compares homosexuality to murder.

Scalia has said in interviews before that he does not let what he thinks is right or wrong influence his rulings--just whether it is Constitutional or not (usually not since he is a strict constructionist). He made some indication in one interview I saw on CNN that he often does not like the assumed factual outcomes of cases when he is in the majority but he does not confuse that with the law.
 
Re: Justice Scalia compares homosexuality to murder.

Fisher said:
Scalia has said in interviews before that he does not let what he thinks is right or wrong influence his rulings--just whether it is Constitutional or not (usually not since he is a strict constructionist). He made some indication in one interview I saw on CNN that he often does not like the assumed factual outcomes of cases when he is in the majority but he does not confuse that with the law.
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I don't think anyone actually believes him when he says this, particularly when his rulings on e.g. mandatory sentencing for drug-related crimes are loaded with moralistic/Statist language.
 
Re: Justice Scalia compares homosexuality to murder.

TurtleDude said:
well Scalia is widely seen as one of the greatest intellects to ever sit on the court. we get the fact that you don't like his views on gays, lesbians etc. and while I disagree with him on his views towards gays he certainly is a better justice than anyone the dems have appointed in the last 40 years
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Yeah, hes SO brilliant that he can't distinguish between a crime with a victim and a victimless human behavior.
 
Re: Justice Scalia compares homosexuality to murder.

Gee, you lefties are correct. Morality has no place in high court decisions. Which, of course, is why we kill unborn babies for convenience.
 
Re: Justice Scalia compares homosexuality to murder.

hfd said:
Gee, you lefties are correct. Morality has no place in high court decisions. Which, of course, is why we kill unborn babies for convenience.
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You're absolutely correct about that. A nation founded on Jeffersonian moral panarchy can't afford to surrender to the ossifying effects of feudalistic universal morality that was exploded theoretically in the 19th century.
 
Re: Justice Scalia compares homosexuality to murder.

hfd said:
Gee, you lefties are correct. Morality has no place in high court decisions. Which, of course, is why we kill unborn babies for convenience.
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You do realize that there is a decent argument for your position on Roe that doesn't involve that particular kind of morality-based reasoning, right?
 
Re: Justice Scalia compares homosexuality to murder.

RepublicanMcDuc said:
You do realize that there is a decent argument for your position on Roe that doesn't involve that particular kind of morality-based reasoning, right?
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Yes the whole thing was a lie. But, what is your problem about the morality issue. Killing unborn babies for convenience is exactly that, a morality issue. Josef Mengele would have fit right in.
 
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Re: Justice Scalia compares homosexuality to murder.

hfd said:
Yes the whole thing was a lie. But, what is your problem about the morality issue. Killing unborn babies for convenience is exactly that, a morality issue. Josef Mengele would have fit right in.
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America's killed unborn babies for decades before Roe. My grandfather killed them as a pilot spraying Agent Orange indiscriminately over Vietnam. Such is the way of the world.
 
Re: Justice Scalia compares homosexuality to murder.

hfd said:
Yes the whole thing was a lie. But, what is your problem about the morality issue. Killing unborn babies for convenience is exactly that, a morality issue. Josef Mengele would have fit right in.
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What do you mean by the whole thing was a lie? I was talking about the legal arguments.
 
Re: Justice Scalia compares homosexuality to murder.

Peter Grimm said:
He's not comparing homosexuality with murder.
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Then he should have used a victimless activity with a morality component.

Like being a drunk or something.

Something people.don't like but that has no victim.

What he did is called conflation.
 
Re: Justice Scalia compares homosexuality to murder.

I agree.

What if...? said:
Then he should have used a victimless activity with a morality component.

Like being a drunk or something.

Something people.don't like but that has no victim.

What he did is called conflation.
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Re: Justice Scalia compares homosexuality to murder.

If morality should never be considered in law, why do we have "war crimes"? Why would excessive collateral damage be punished? I'm sure Lt. Calley would be delighted to hear he's no longer holding the bag.
 
Re: Justice Scalia compares homosexuality to murder.

Peter Grimm said:
I wish you would refrain from the insults, they aren't really needed, but you make some great points.

First, should these "moral feelings" be embodied in to law? Dunno. Good question.

Second, you distinguish murderers as a group that can be discriminated against because they hurt people. This is interesting. I would say, though, that we have laws against many things that don't hurt others. It would be illegal for me to smear myself in green jello and walk naked through the subway, for example.
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The theory is that public nudity does "harm" others, if only their sensibilities.

So this is not a good example.

Generally, our jurisprudence involves protecting society and its members. Attendant to that, we may have moral feelings relating to a law. Thus we criminalize child molestation because it both harms children AND it is morally repugnant. We don't ban Britney Spears albums, even thought they are arguable morally repugnant, because nobody is harmed by here dubious music.

Laws that simply discriminate against people because we don't like them are generally ruled unconstitutional under the equal protection clause. Thus Scalia invidious comparison between moral feelings about murder and moral feelings about gays shows what an intellectual shill he is. He's just doing the bidding of the Right.
 
Re: Justice Scalia compares homosexuality to murder.

hfd said:
Not sure that relates to Biblical admonishments. See the problem with your response?
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No, since we don't pass laws based on biblical admonishment, especially dubious ones, like the homophobia of the religious right (which is more in their mind than the bible)
 
Re: Justice Scalia compares homosexuality to murder.

Peter Grimm said:
He isn't doing that, though. He never says that homosexuality is similar to murder.
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Yes he is. He's saying just as moral feelings against murder are a legitimate reason to pass laws against it, so to moral feelings against gays is a reason to pass laws against homosexual behavior.

That's a hot mess of a legal argument that shows an inferior intellect at work. It's better suited to a Fox News show than the Supreme court.
 
Re: Justice Scalia compares homosexuality to murder.

Your Star said:
Anyone who can compare homosexuality to murder, or justifying using the state to judge, rate, and block business's from selling video games(Why is he not a statist for supporting that?) based on mid-1600 parenting techniques is a dumbass. Sorry, it's just the truth.
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he did not, stop having a fit over a false charge

and I would bet there is no one on this board with the intellectual gifts of Justice Scalia. Many legal scholars believe he is the most gifted justice to ever sit on the court. Only Roberts and Alito can match his academic record.
 
Re: Justice Scalia compares homosexuality to murder.

head of joaquin said:
Several in fact. But this thread is not about my superior lawyering skills and your fetish for personalizing everything, but rather Scalia's thuggery and lack of judicial termperament.

Frankly a judge that compares a group of people to murderers because of their sexual orientation should be impeached on grounds of utmost stupidity.
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idiocy at its basest form in that post. you apparently have demonstrated an inability to understand what he was saying. and superior lawyers aren't here during working hours as much as you are or rung up over 2000 posts in less than two months
 
Re: Justice Scalia compares homosexuality to murder.

TurtleDude said:
he did not, stop having a fit over a false charge

and I would bet there is no one on this board with the intellectual gifts of Justice Scalia. Many legal scholars believe he is the most gifted justice to ever sit on the court. Only Roberts and Alito can match his academic record.
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Scalia is a rube. If you want an example of an intelligent conservative Justice, though departed, look to Rehnquist.
 
Re: Justice Scalia compares homosexuality to murder.

Einzige said:
Scalia is a rube. If you want an example of an intelligent conservative Justice, though departed, look to Rehnquist.
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edify me as to your credentials as either an appellate attorney or a law professor to make such a pronouncement
 
Re: Justice Scalia compares homosexuality to murder.

Einzige said:
Scalia is a rube. If you want an example of an intelligent conservative Justice, though departed, look to Rehnquist.
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The intellectual bankruptcy of Scalia is obvious in how his opinions have no intellectual center but rather are crafted tendentiously to meet his rightwing political goals.

Thus, when he thinks states will pass more reactionary laws, he invokes states rights and limiting federal interference. But when the federal government appearsw more reactionary (as in DOMA) suddenly he insists that Congress has occupied the field.

There is no there there with Scalia, except his bizarre claim to be able to channel the intentions of dead founders, and intuit that they all interpreted the Constitution the same way.
 
Re: Justice Scalia compares homosexuality to murder.

TurtleDude said:
edify me as to your credentials as either an appellate attorney or a law professor to make such a pronouncement
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I don't need to be either. I'm a layman student with an interest in the history of the Court. Rehnquist was serving as a shadow adviser to Nixon while Scalia was making photocopies for the University of Virginia. (I'll note also that you fail to hold yourself to your own standards while proclaiming Scalia the MOST AWESOMEIST JUSTICE EVER."
 
Re: Justice Scalia compares homosexuality to murder.

Einzige said:
I don't need to be either. I'm a layman student with an interest in the history of the Court. Rehnquist was serving as a shadow adviser to Nixon while Scalia was making photocopies for the University of Virginia. (I'll note also that you fail to hold yourself to your own standards while proclaiming Scalia the MOST AWESOMEIST JUSTICE EVER."
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I didn't use the term awesome so stop lying. "layman student" LOL
 
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