Scalia: You support gay marriage, why not murder?

[CleSportsTruth]

B/c clearly, they're totally the same thing.

Hosie questioned Scalia’s comparison between having a moral objection to sodomy and having a moral objection toward things like bestiality or murder. Scalia defended his comparison as a form of argument.

“If we cannot have moral feelings against homosexuality, can we have it against murder? Can we have it against these other things?” Scalia asked, explaining his dissent.

Uh, let me explain this, asshole. Unprosecuted/condoned murders would utterly destroy society. Further, murder, obviously directly harms another. Neither applies to homosexuality, whether one "approves" or not.

[FUDU]

I don't think he is saying or implying what you think he is. I think he is asking that question in regards to the Constitution and reading our laws for what they are. He might also be implying that we can personally decide where our morals are, and be for or against something due to our morals (based upon the foundation of those morals), yet be for or against something else based upon our governing laws.

Keep reading those articles about his story all the way through and you will see how he dives into the discussion of a living and breathing document versus and enduring one.

During his lecture, he defended his view that focusing on the text and the original meaning of the Constitution are the best interpretive measures to protect the Constitution and democratic ideals.

“The text is what governs,” said Scalia, explaining that it would be wrong to bring in the historical circumstances at the time of the Constitution’s signing or to attempt to interpret the intent of those who wrote the document.

“I don’t care what their intent was. We are a government of laws, not of men,” he explained.

Scalia lamented that the trend has moved toward viewing the Constitution as a living document that is open to new interpretations. He explained that the most common argument for this approach is flexibility, explaining that his opponents argue that as society changes, the Constitution must grow with the society it governs.

“The Constitution is not an organism; it’s a legal text for Pete’s sake,” Scalia said.

He argued that while viewing it as a living document can guarantee new freedoms, it can also eliminate old ones. That is in part why Scalia said he views the structure of the Constitution as more important than the enumerated rights contained within it.

http://www.dailyprincetonian.com/2012/12/10/32135/

[jerryroche]

Thank you Judge Scalia, for supporting the Constitution as a legal document and not the libs' contention that it's a "living document."

Frankly, the Supreme Court shouldn't even hear cases involving gay rights. Frankly, there should be no such thing as gay rights. Gays should have the same civil rights as all other U.S. citizens. Gays are people, too. The U.S. Constitution says so.

That same document guarantees that every U.S. citizen is treated the same way, in every respect, by the federal government. And for the past century, we've been straying farther and farther from that original intent of our Founding Fathers. The federal government has even metastasized into a charitable organization, handing out taxpayer dollars to favored groups, rather than treating everyone the same.

The PPACA is the most recent legislation to prove my point. Why is it 2,600 pages? Because it treats certain distinguishable groups differently, and it contains so many absurd exceptions that it's legally a mess. If the PPACA treated everyone equally, it probably would be less than 100 pages long, and it would be far less controversial.

[e0y2e3]

Personally I think we should just lynch all the gays.

It would save the old religitards like Jerry the trouble of having to contemplate those dirty thoughts of hot man on man action everytime the concept of "gay marriage" comes up. I mean, the love between and husband and wife is SO CHEAPENED by two dudes getting married and pounding each other in the ass.

[Erie Warrior]

Personally I think we should just lynch all the gays.

It would save the old religitards like Jerry the trouble of having to contemplate those dirty thoughts of hot man on man action everytime the concept of "gay marriage" comes up. I mean, the love between and husband and wife is SO CHEAPENED by two dudes getting married and pounding each other in the ass.

I'm in the "all marriage is gay" camp. That makes me a centrist.

[jerryroche]

Personally I think we should just lynch all the gays.
It would save the old religitards like Jerry the trouble of having to contemplate those dirty thoughts of hot man on man action everytime the concept of "gay marriage" comes up. I mean, the love between and husband and wife is SO CHEAPENED by two dudes getting married and pounding each other in the ass.

I say let 'em pound away, if it makes 'em happy. "Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness."

[e0y2e3]

Ah yes, just so they aren't "married".

On that notion, lynch all of the married couples that engage in oral or anal sex too, because that's just not supported by the bible thus not the constitution!!!

MISSIONARY STYLE ONLY BITCHEZ

[CleSportsTruth]

I've been told elsewhere that I'm misinterpreting Scalia, but I'm not sure how. He's actually defending letting Texas outlaw "sodomy" (Lawrence v. Texas, IIRC). Sure, we're allowed personal moral judgments on anything. What that has to do w/ Constitutional governance isn't clear.

The rest of the article/lecture is interesting, even if I don't totally agree w/ it.

[jerryroche]

I've been told elsewhere that I'm misinterpreting Scalia, but I'm not sure how. He's actually defending letting Texas outlaw "sodomy" (Lawrence v. Texas, IIRC). Sure, we're allowed personal moral judgments on anything. What that has to do w/ Constitutional governance isn't clear. The rest of the article/lecture is interesting, even if I don't totally agree w/it.

This. Scalia's opinion is supported by Articles 1, 4, 9 and 10 of the Bill of Rights.

Moreover, there should be no rights accorded by the federal government to married persons that are not accorded unmarried persons. If such were the case, this gay marriage controversy wouldn't even exist; it would be in the purview of an individual's church doctrine and/or personal morals. This is yet another case of government sticking its nose where it doesn't belong, with the usual unintended consequences and attendant legal proceedings. Another way for the lawyers to make a buck.

Somebody has used personal prejudices to misinterpret my original post. After all, what business is it of mine what two consenting adults do in their bedroom?

[HoodooMan]

I've been told elsewhere that I'm misinterpreting Scalia, but I'm not sure how.

You are. Here's how.

The core of Scalia's dissent (aside from the tangential sniping RE: Planned Parenthood)--at least as I remember it; I just skimmed a quick re-cap on Wiki, and I'm not going to go do what you could go do yourself if you're really that interested and re-read Lawrence--is that under the established standard of review for that kind of case, all a statute needs to do is further a "legitimate state interest" to be upheld.

Whether you like it or don't like it, historically, morality has been a pretty well-established statutory purpose, both independent of and along with others like deterrence and incapacitation. For the court to say that morality alone is not a legitimate state interest was a radically new thing to say, and if your Constitutional philosophy matches Scalia's, you're right to lose your shit over it. The analogy to murder, as he's using it, is a perfectly legitimate one. For as long as we've been around, it'd been enough to say "Murder is wrong and, if you're guilty of murder, that's why we're going to put you in jail. Because it's wrong. Why is it wrong? Because we/our mothers/Gawd/da Burble say so."

You're also making the mistake of conflating judicial conservativism with political conservativism and being foolishly condescending with your "Uh, let me explain this..." to a really fine SC justice at the pinnacle of his profession. (His/his clerks' decisions are--or were; it's been a while since I read one--always very direct and intellectually consistent; when you disagree with Scalia, as I almost always did, you always know precisely where and why.) But you didn't ask about those things, and really, you barely even asked about what I answered, so yeah...

[Cerebral_DownTime]

Banning gay marriage might be one of most illogical stances ever. There's no reason to ban it, unless you think it's wrong because some 2,000 year old book says so. Which is the most ridiculous argument that can be made.

[e0y2e3]

STOP IT HOODOO

[Erie Warrior]

Which is the most ridiculous argument that can be made.

Actually the most ridiculous argument is because a book that is 3500 years old, written by hundreds of people, all of whom heard the stories centuries after they took place, then censored the stories by a select few people thousands of years later to perpetuate their fiscal and social monopoly over economically disadvantaged ignoramuses, says so.

[bookelly]

Why shouldn't gay people be allowed to be as miserable as the rest of us?

[dmiles]

Why shouldn't gay people be allowed to be as miserable as the rest of us?

Yep. I've been telling these idiots to get rid of the family values stuff, but the sons-a-bitches never listen to me. Free the weed too....