March 17, 2007

"It's crazy. It's like having a mini-constitutional convention every time you pick a Supreme Court justice."

Says Justice Antonin Scalia.

You may also be interested to know that he reveals what he thinks about whether Congress has the power to regulate marriage: "No, I don't see anything in there. I don't see any authorization of the federal government to do that." So presumably, in Scalia's view the Defense of Marriage Act, which among other things, absolves states of the obligation to respect same-sex marriages made in other states, is unconstitutional. Someone asks the obvious follow-on question whether the Constitution obligates a state to recognize another state's same-sex marriages, and he judiciously holds his tongue.

15 comments:

Simon said...

On the subject of DOMA, Lucas Sayre has this post about a recent speech in which "Justice Ginsburg directly stated that she felt that the DOMA directly excuses states from granting credit under the FF&C clause. This puts this legal question to bed in my mind. If a liberal justice says this, then the court would never have the numbers to rule otherwise."

Useful info to put back to back with Scalia's comments.

Simon said...

And to pre-empt the inevitable trolling: Scalia is not saying that it's a good thing that "[s]electing a nominee is no longer about finding someone who is fair." Misunderstanding becomes more understandable, of course, since the AP, of course, goes out of its way to misrepresent Scalia.

hdhouse said...

trolling simon? whatever do you mean?

does "fair" mean "agrees with?" betcha it does.

per your ginsberg example, it is clear and scalia, when pressed, of course has no comment so not to offend his supporters? fair? balance?

scalia you faux you!

hdhouse said...

Simon? is that you ... the simon on the stubborn facts page?

really? reads like you. was just curious.

Simon said...

Ann Althouse said...
"[P]resumably, in Scalia's view the Defense of Marriage Act, which among other things, absolves states of the obligation to respect same-sex marriages made in other states, is unconstitutional."

Well, the "among other things" is the crucial part of that statement. My presumption would be that he'd be inclined to find Section 3 invalid, but uphold Section 2 as a valid exercise of the full faith and credit clause. So it becomes a question of severability, and I would think it's possible in the case of DOMA to "sever its problematic portions while leaving the remainder intact."

Ruth Anne Adams said...

Scalia comment + Althouse post = Simmon will comment.

Simon said...

Ruth Anne - LOL. To be fair, Scalia comments posted on any blog I read likely guarantees a comment from me. ;) I neither hide nor make any apologies for my man crush. ;)

Ruth Anne Adams said...

Are you calling Althouse "a man"??!!

Palladian said...

Shorter Cedarford: gay anal sex...gay anal sex...gay anal sex...gay anal sex...

Just can't get it off your mind, can you? Now the next step is to somehow work the Jews in there. And I'm surprised that you haven't mentioned the need to junk the "antiquated old parchment" in a Constitution thread. I guess that thinking about gay anal sex tends to distract one from other issues. It certainly distracts me.

Beth said...

Palladian,

Cedarford has an RSS feed that rings a little disco tune on his phone to alert him anytime "gay" comes up on a blog he reads.

Freder Frederson said...

When courts go outside the Constitution as they did in matters like prisoner&terrorist rights

Excuse me, how are these rights outside the constitution?

Simon said...

Ruth Anne - I was talking about my man-crush on Scalia. LMAO.

Fitz said...

Cedarford has multiple important points. Scalia was correct about the problems generated by Lawrence.

Gay anal sex seems to be the priority of our legal elites. Under a conservative regime, this would be a State matter & we would not be threatened by same-sex "marriage" that has caused a unprecedented democratic tide to sweep every State in the Union.

These cases (obviously) are designed to build on one another. No sooner does one precedent fall (Bowers) than a new legal travesty (Goodridge) springs forth.

Those obsessed with anal sex seem to be legion in the academy. I for one would rather spend my time on other matters. They won’t allow it
.

Freder Frederson said...

These cases (obviously) are designed to build on one another. No sooner does one precedent fall (Bowers) than a new legal travesty (Goodridge) springs forth.

The law in question in Bowers was extremely broad, covered heterosexual sodomy (although not sex between two women) and included oral sex, not just anal sex, in its definition of sodomy.

In fact, after the law was upheld in Bowers, a heterosexual man was convicted and sent to jail for having consensual oral sex with his ex-wife. She had accused him of rape. His defense, which the jury accepted, was that the sex was consensual. But the judge instructed the jury that even if they fully believed his story they must return a verdict of guilty on consensual sodomy since he had admitted to performing oral sex on his ex-wife during his testimony. That is exactly what the jury did.

Fitz said...

Freder Frederson

All a good argument for changing that law properly.