I’m not sure what percentage of orgies involve sodomy (I guess Antonin is using the broadest legal definition), or how inherently relaxing orgies are. That’s outside the scope of my experience. What I do know is that Scalia is a creep.
Scalia decried his own court’s recent overturning of a state anti-sodomy law, joking that he personally believes “sexual orgies eliminate tension and ought to be encouraged,” but said a panel of judges is not inherently qualified to determine the morality of such behavior.
This juvenile analysis of the merits of laws that ban consensual sex between same-sex couples is stunning coming from a member of our highest court. For Scalia, sodomy can be a fun, group experience…but it can also be a criminal activity. He says it is not up to judges to determine whether American citizens have an inherent right to engage in consensual sexual activities because judges have no special insight into moral questions.
Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia railed against the era of the “judge-moralist,” saying judges are no better qualified than “Joe Sixpack” to decide moral questions such as abortion and gay marriage.
“Anyone who thinks the country’s most prominent lawyers reflect the views of the people needs a reality check,” he said during a speech to New England School of Law students and faculty at a Law Day banquet on Wednesday night.
It’s not a judge’s job to worry about the morality of sodomy. It their job to determine the rights of individual citizens. Scalia is too much of a homophobe and orgy enthusiast to even take the question seriously.
i think he confused relaxing with exhausting
I’m exhausted from reading this crap
Calling Scalia a creep is like announcing “Big light in sky slated to appear in east.”
Harry Reid called Greenspan a hack – Scalia is an even bigger hack, and quite a bit more smug.
he’s grosses me out. I wonder what he and Clarence do in their spare time? I wonder what they have in their DVD collection. I’m sure it’s illegal in many states.
Scalia got the reputation, presumably via a lot of log-rolling and mutual fluffing among the right, of being a legal genius. He certainly believes that he is. And he clearly doesn’t suffer fools (or rather, those he believes are fools, which means everyone else) gladly.
But like so many heavy hitters on the right, he’s not nearly so smart as he thinks he is. It’s as if someone cloned the Kevin Kline character from A Fish Called Wanda and created an entire political leadership class out of the result.
When he is being outcome oriented he engages in some downright torturous legal reasoning- but in quite a few “dull” cases he has written very sound and intelligent opinions. For example his concurrence in the case of Church of the Lukumi Babalu Aye v. City of Hialeah, 508 U.S. 520 (1993) is a delightful use of the rational basis test to actually strike down an offensive law.
When I was in graduate school (in American history), I saw him give a series of three lectures on U.S. Constitutional history and was greatly underwhelmed.
Scalia believes that all “social issues” should be resolved on a state by state basis. If those liberals in California want to make something legal that conservatives in Alabama don’t want to be legal, that should be the right of both states to do so. People should be active in getting their state legislatures to reflect their values; People are free to move to states that reflect their own values if the state they live in doesn’t.
Except of course, ordinary people have little or no power to affect state laws, People aren’t free to just pick up and move on a whim. And it completely eviscerates any idea that the constitution guarantees certain base levels of individual freedom from state interference.
I have never been to an orgy either. But maybe Scalia knows of one in the DC area that I could attend.
i dont know who in dc is having orgies these days…but in dc you can go to the crucible on a kinky night or a swingers night and meet hundreds of people who can tell you where to find the orgies…or you can go to one of their bi annual kinky camp weekends and there are plenty of orgies and more going on.
http://www.the-crucible.com
Judge Sixpack speaks.
This speech rang a bell and I looked it up. This is one of his canned speeches that he’s been giving the last few years, he probably just changes the reference to the latest case he doesn’t like.
In 2004 the court had to issue a statement saying that his statement about orgies was taken out of context in a speech he made at Harvard.
He also said in 2004:
judges are no better qualified than “Joe Sixpack” to decide moral questions such as abortion and gay marriage.
Are we even asking judges to decide moral questions? I thought we were trying to get judges to stop states from deciding moral questions so people would have the freedom to make their own personal moral decisions.
As for Scalia, I missed my chance to personally witness his one-man sex show and also throw pies in his general direction. He spoke at my law school in the spring of 2001, the semester after I graduated and moved several thousand miles away.
was really setting moral policy, lesbian sex orgies would be the newest spectator attraction…
Personally, I’m not into orgies — knowing there’s an audience sorta wrecks the mood IMHO. But whatever two (or more) consenting adults want to do in the privacy of their home is fine with me; they can even do it in a hotel room if they tip the housekeeping staff well in the event of a mess…
I don’t have any interest in orgies either, what with being an introvert who doesn’t feel comfortable in crowds, but we supposedly have a swingers group in conservative small-town Andalusia Alabama if I ever change my mind. Personally, most of the holier-than-thou people I have met are hypocrites who don’t have any problem doing what they preach against as long as no one finds out.
It’s quite intriguing that you immediately associated sodomy with same-sex relations (I presume you are also assuming lesbian sex of necessity involves sodomy???!!!!) I understand that it is also particularly populsr among those kids who are tied up in the “chastity” movements in the bible belt. Apparently it “doesnt count” as sex so they are not breaking they vow to be good Christians and wait for marriage.
Depending on the state, oral sex is classified as sodomy. I know this is the law in Virginia, for example. So, it covers gays and lesbians, as well as much of male/female sexual activity.
A lot of these laws are on the books but never enforced. The Texas case involved a man being prosecuted for engaging in gay sex in his own apartment. Apparently a neighbor was tired of listening through the wall or something and called in some kind of weapons complaint.
are all unqualified- and unauthorized by the constitution- to determine personal morality for other citizens.
WHich is why sodomy laws should be (and are (thanks Kennedy, J.!)) ruled unconstitutional.
By Scalia’s argument a legislature could declare anything, say karioke (sp?) or 3.141…, to be immoral and thereby outlaw it.
I have a cherished fantasy that one day the wives and mistresses of these creeps will turn on them and tell all.
The thing about sodomy that really burns me up is these the morality police apparently have no freaking clue what it even means. From Merriam-Webster.com:
So when this law was in effect, technically every guy that got a BJ from their wife, girlfriend, whatever was breaking the law. Of course it was only being applied to harass homosexuals.