U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia was at it again yesterday. I have previously criticized Scalia’s apparent insatiable appetite for public notoriety, including violating judicial ethical rules by discussing issues in pending cases. He is the very model of the new celebrity justice that I have criticized in past columns (here and here and here). Now, at Princeton while pitching his latest book, “Reading Law,” Scalia succeeded in not only discussing an issue in two pending same-sex marriage cases but reaffirming homophobic prejudices. Scalia was questioned about his controversial comments equating homosexuality with bestiality by a gay student. Scalia admitted that such comparison are “not necessary, but I think it’s effective.” That appears to be the standard used by this justice in using profoundly insulting language: whether it is effective prose or argument. I will be appearing on Lawrence O’Donnell tonight on MSNBC with the student, freshman Duncan Hosie.
Duncan Hosie asked a disarming question of whether it is really necessary to compare homosexuality to murder and bestiality to make his point. No, Scalia, responded, “I don’t think it’s necessary, but I think it’s effective.” He then reaffirmed his support for “morals legislation” and the right of states to criminalize whatever they deem immoral — the very issue that underlies two same-sex marriage cases accepted last week.
Scalia basically told Hosie that comparing millions of Americans to people engaged in murder or bestiality is justified because it is clever: “It’s a form of argument that I thought you would have known, which is called the ‘reduction to the absurd . . . If we cannot have moral feelings against homosexuality, can we have it against murder? Can we have it against other things?” He then added the mocking afterthought that “I’m surprised you aren’t persuaded.” He certainly has, again, reduced this important human rights issue to an absurd level but I am unsure why that is effective as opposed to being obviously cathartic for Scalia.
I am not sure about Hosie, but I am not only unpersuaded but disgusted by the comments. For full disclosure, I represent the Brown family in the Sister Wives case in Utah challenging this type of morality legislation. As I have written in a prior New York Times column, Scalia is attempting to divide citizens with such arguments and he has been remarkably successful when it comes to gay and polygamy cases. In his dissent in Lawrence v. Texas, Justice Antonin Scalia said the case would mean the legalization of “bigamy, same-sex marriage, adult incest, prostitution, masturbation, adultery, fornication, bestiality and obscenity.” It is a Scalia parade of horribles. However, it also equates homosexuality with crimes like bestiality which occur without the consent of the victims.
Of course, Scalia does not answer how the right to criminalize immoral acts has been previously used to prosecute marriage of mixed race couples. He repeatedly refers to the slippery slope once the Court strikes down morality legislation, but never discusses his own slippery slope of criminalization for any acts deemed immoral by a majority of citizens.
Scalia’s view of the law seemed perfectly captured in responding to whether the Constitution is a living document. He responded “[i]t isn’t a living document. It’s dead, dead, dead, dead.”
Source: ABC
Is Scalias dog safe…. Is it true he studied to be a priest?
Scalia sounds more and more like the Pedophile priests who run his church…….
I would think his comments would be sufficient reason to have recused.
(Love to have him recused form the SCOTUS altogether were it possible)
Gene,
Scalia is not only one of the worst Justices, he is one of the least ethical Justices to ever don the robes. He should stick to Canon Law.
No, he should stick a small cannon up his butt, and fire it off…….!
shano
1, December 11, 2012 at 4:18 pm
When did masturbation become illegal and why did no one tell me about this?
==========================================================
we did, but you were,ah, busy at the time.
Gene at 7:38 pm: “WIN!”
For your reading enjoyment —
http://scholarship.law.duke.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2130&context=faculty_scholarship&sei-redir=1&referer=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com%2Furl%3Fsa%3Dt%26rct%3Dj%26q%3Dscalia%2520chemerinsky%26source%3Dweb%26cd%3D1%26ved%3D0CC0QFjAA%26url%3Dhttp%253A%252F%252Fscholarship.law.duke.edu%252Fcgi%252Fviewcontent.cgi%253Farticle%253D2130%2526context%253Dfaculty_scholarship%26ei%3DddXHUIKqJIq5qgGe4YHgAg%26usg%3DAFQjCNEEfIuiUEaSkBvGlvi1DY5CWKUoYg%26bvm%3Dbv.1355247934%2Cbs.1%2Cd.b2U#search=%22scalia%20chemerinsky%22
[or Google “Scalia Chemerinsky”]
http://digitalcommons.tourolaw.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1190&context=lawreview&sei-redir=1&referer=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com%2Furl%3Fsa%3Dt%26rct%3Dj%26q%3Dscalia%2520crtical%2520legal%2520study%26source%3Dweb%26cd%3D2%26ved%3D0CD0QFjAB%26url%3Dhttp%253A%252F%252Fdigitalcommons.tourolaw.edu%252Fcgi%252Fviewcontent.cgi%253Farticle%253D1190%2526context%253Dlawreview%26ei%3D59XHUPmMI5THqAHsyYCwBw%26usg%3DAFQjCNFE2ksXqq6tYGUzuIG1ckE-wjiYZg%26bvm%3Dbv.1355247934%2Cbs.1%2Cd.b2U#search=%22scalia%20crtical%20legal%20study%22
[or Gooogle “Scalia silly Touro”]
Scalia: “If we cannot have moral feelings against homosexuality, can we have it against murder? Can we have it against other things?”
Just like the film Unforgiven; with Will Munny standing over Little Bill Daggett just before he pulls the trigger on the rifle pointed at Little Bill’s head…
The Categorical Imperative says to Scalia: “Feeling’s got nothin’ to do with it.”
To wit:
Kant: ” For the pure conception of duty, unmixed with any foreign addition of empirical attractions, and, in a word, the conception of the moral law, exercises on the human heart, by way of reason alone (which first becomes aware with this that it can of itself be practical), an influence so much more powerful than all other springs* which may be derived from the field of experience, that, in the consciousness of its worth, it despises the latter, and can by degrees become their master; whereas a mixed ethics, compounded partly of motives drawn from feelings and inclinations, and partly also of conceptions of reason, must make the mind waver between motives which cannot be brought under any principle, which lead to good only by mere accident and very often also to evil.”
Tony,
As is demonstrated here quite often, reductio ad absurdum is not as easy a technique to master as it would seem. Scalia fails with it for the same reason many attempting it here fail. The item being carried to absurdity must be not just of the same type, but a close same type. Otherwise, the form itself is an absurdity because the form of argument plays to consequences, i.e. carried to a logical extrapolation, x leads to y leads to an absurd z. If the items compared are not close same types, the causality breaks down. Scalia starts with false equivalences thus his application fails from the start logically. He was wrong the first time he tried the argument. He’s doubly wrong in reiterating it as if his logic gets any better with repetition.
oh BarkinDog so, in his statement Scalia the barnacle scraper reveals his own bestialities.
As if republicans have not alienated gay people enough already…..
I looked up the word “bestiality”. Here is the definitiion:
bestiality
bes·ti·al·i·ty
[bes-chee-al-i-tee, bees-]
noun, plural bes·ti·al·i·ties.
1.
brutish or beastly character or behavior; beastliness.
2.
indulgence in beastlike appetites, instincts, impulses, etc.
3.
an instance of bestial character or behavior.
4.
sexual relations between a person and an animal; sodomy.
——————————————————————————–
The judge must be speaking of section 4. Sexual relations between a person and an animal.
I was at the marina and a guy from Sicily was there so I asked him about the origin of the name Scalia. He says that back in the old country this was a reference to a seaside person who did not go out to sea but who scraped the barnacles off of boats. He says that was a front for low level mafia guys.
“Beasts” he called them. So we have gone full circle.
But if Scalia wants to equate a gay humanloid couple with a humanoid who porks an animal then he needs to be more expressive. After all, he is promoting a book and he is going on television and might run into the wrong dog who would get offended. Like a sea and eye dog.
Origin:
1350–1400; Middle English bestial(i)te (< Anglo-French, Middle French) < Medieval Latin bēstiālitās. See bestial, -ity
I am going to go read my New York Dictionary (which explains Turdy Turd and a Turd as being 33rd Street and 3rd Avenue). I often use this book when I try to follow the Supreme Court oral arguments on C-SPAN. When Scalia, Ginsberg and Alito chirp one hears a lot of NewYorkese. I intend to look up “bestiality” and I will report back. Scalia may not be referring to humanoids porking animals. But he might be.
Ah, Beverelliee dahlin, reappears after her (?) recent cameo in the comments which displayed an incredibly deficient knowledge of the number of illegal Israel dwellings built in the territories or a familiarity of math bordering on fantasy, or both. Now we are left aghast that she ‘tends’ to be amazed. why not go the whole hog and actually BE amazed?
I thought it was a joke until I realized this is a Supreme Court Justice.
then it was just pathetic.
I wonder if Cheney’s daughter gave him a call to complain.
All Scalia did was answer the question posed to him: “Why the rhetorical comparison?” He explained the rhetorical device – reductio ad absurdum – that he had previously used in his writings. The Professor is welcome to disagree with Scalia’s conclusion, but attacking the logical consistency of his reasoning is another thing, and I certainly don’t understand the fresh outrage and disgust in the slightest. What did Professor Turley expect? For Scalia to renounce his previous writings and sign on to the idea that the Supreme Court can and should strike down all morality legislation using non-textual judge-made constitutional doctrines the very existence of which he has never endorsed in any context? Forgive me if the Professor’s “disgust” seems a bit much.
The venomous hate in the comments on this site tend to amaze me…attacks on both his professional abilities and personal life. Hate speech at its best.
Beverellie,
Comparing gay people with murderer’s, or people into bestiality is hate speech. But to you I bet it is the equivalence of wisdom. You protest venom, but I bet it is co-mingled with yours and his precious bodily fluids.
When did masturbation become illegal and why did no one tell me about this?
passed
” In his dissent in Lawrence v. Texas, Justice Antonin Scalia said the case would mean the legalization of “bigamy, same-sex marriage, adult incest, prostitution, masturbation, adultery, fornication, bestiality and obscenity.” ”
Masturbation???!!! Fornications? I’d be way beyond “three strikes and you’re out” territory if these laws were past (outside of Yemen). I’ve read about the anti-catholic hand-wringing that went on when JFK ran for president. It appears that it now may be a political asset to appear to being orders from the Pope ansd basing US law on ecclesiastical mumbo-jumbo.
I was talking about this stuff last night with my dad, who wnet to highschool with Scalia. The old man said he was a dick in highschool too.