Antonin Scalia Calls Gays an "Invented Minority"

Some describe Antonin Scalia as the "intellectual leader" of the conservative faction on the U. S. Supreme Court.  Candidly, a close minded, bigoted old grump who wants the Constitution to conform to his own prejudices is a more apt description of the man.  Now, speaking a meeting sponsored by the Federalist Society, Scalia is describing and once again arguing  the rights of minorities should be left to the whims - or more correctly, the tyranny - of the majority.  gays as an "invented minority" As I have noted before, the man needs to retire or be removed from the Court.  Here are highlights from Talking Points Memo:

The U.S. Supreme Court is making decisions that should be left to Congress or the people, from wiretapping to “inventing” new classes of minorities, Justice Antonin Scalia said Monday.

In an apparent reference to the court’s recent decisions on gay marriage and benefits for same-sex couples, Scalia said it is not the function of the courts to create exceptions outside the Constitution unless a majority of people agree with them.

“It’s not up to the courts to invent new minorities that get special protections,” Scalia told a packed hotel ballroom in southwestern Montana.

Changes to the Constitution were made to protect minorities and to give women the right to vote, but that’s not how the court operates today, he said.  Rather, a majority of five judges decide issues that should be in the hands of Congress or made through a change to the Constitution.

 Per the Billings Gazette this also:

Scalia, considered an intellectual leader of the Supreme Court’s conservative wing, said the court’s justices are no better suited to decide what rights ought to exist than is “Joe Sixpack.”

“These aren’t questions for lawyers,” he said. “These are the kind of questions that society debates and decides.”

Many of his comments centered on his cause of interpreting the “original meaning” of the U.S. Constitution and its amendments, which he said spell out clearly defined rights that should not be embellished by the courts.

“I’m just pointing out what happens when you don’t stick to the original meaning of the Constitution,” he said. “The court makes an amazing amount of decisions that ought to be made by the people.”

Let's be clear, Scalia believes in the tyranny of the majority - unless, of course, it differs with his own bigotry.

 

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Justice Ginsburg Reacts To Epidemic Of Voter Suppression Laws: Told You So

In the wake of the U. S. Supreme Court ruling striking down a portion of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, Republicans in Texas and other states where they control the state legislatures are stampeding to enact voter ID laws aimed at disenfranchising minorities and to a lesser extent college students whom they see as more likely to be Democratic voters.  None of this should be a surprise and, indeed, it is precisely what Scalia, Alito and other conservatives on the Court - including Clarence "Uncle Tom" Thomas - wanted.  Justice Ginsburg forcefully dissented from the ruling and is now saying "I told you so."  Here are highlights from Think Progress:

“I didn’t want to be right,” Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg says about her prediction that striking a key prong of the Voting Rights Act will lead to a wave of minority voter suppression, “but sadly I am.” In an interview with the Associated Press’ Mark Sherman, Ginsburg reiterated one of the core points of her dissent from the five Republican justices’ voting rights decision — “The notion that because the Voting Rights Act had been so tremendously effective we had to stop it didn’t make any sense to me,” Ginsburg said. “And one really could have predicted what was going to happen” once the law was struck down.

What has happened is a rush of voter suppression laws in states once subject to federal supervision under the provision gutted by Ginsburg’s Republican colleagues. Just two hours after the decision was announced, Texas’ attorney general announced that a common voter suppression law would take effect in Texas — and several other states are right behind Texas. In Arizona, Republicans want to redraw district lines to make them less “competitive,” now that federal supervision of the state’s redistricting has lifted. North Carolina Republicans are on the verge of enacting the worst voter suppression law in the country.

In her dissent, Ginsburg warned that “the evolution of voting discrimination into more subtle second-generation barriers is powerful evidence that a remedy as effective as preclearance remains vital to protect minority voting rights and prevent backsliding.” One month later, it’s already clear that Ginsburg was right.

The GOP only wants angry elderly, racist whites to be able to vote since increasingly that is all that remains in the GOP base.

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British House of Lords Gives Final Approval to Gay Marriage

While the U. S. Supreme Court chose to dodge facing the fact that bans on gay marriage are unconstitutional on an equal protection basis in Hollingsworth v. Perry, the British House of Lords - not exactly an ultra-liberal body - has given its final stamp of approval to gay marriage in the United Kingdom.  Frankly, it is embarrassing to watch as other Supreme Courts around the developed world find that gay marriage bans are discriminatory and unconstitutional while America's Supreme Court lacked the balls and morality to call out religious based discrimination for what it is and rule broadly.  The only positive light is that the language in the Windsor opinion may likely set the stage for ending anti-gay amendments nationwide in future cases.  Here are highlights from Stonewall on events in the UK:

Lesbian, gay and bisexual couples in England and Wales will be able to marry next spring, after the House of Lords gave Third Reading to the Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Bill. Subject to consideration of amendments in the House of Commons – a technicality, as the Bill made it through the Lords without any material amendments – the Bill will now receive Royal Assent and become law.

Stonewall Chief Executive Ben Summerskill said: ‘It’s impossible to express how much joy this historic step will bring to tens of thousands of gay people and their families and friends. The Bill’s progress through Parliament shows that, at last, the majority of politicians in both Houses understand the public’s support for equality – though it’s also reminded us that gay people still have powerful opponents.

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Washington Post-ABC Poll: Most Americans Support Supreme Court Gay Marriage Rulings

A new Washington Post-ABC poll provides more bad news for the Christofascists and anti-gay extremists within the Roman Catholic Church hierarchy.  Most Americans believe the Supreme Court got it right in ruling that Section 3 of DOMA is unconstitutional and - to be candid, was motivated by anti-gay animus.  The findings make clear that opponents of gay marriage will largely die off within a generation or less and that the GOP is courting long term disaster by prostituting itself to the Christofascists.  Here are highlights from the Washington Post:

Most Americans think the Supreme Court got it right last week in decisions that bolstered same-sex marriage, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll.

The court by a 5-to-4 margin struck down part of the the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act, which withheld federal recognition and benefits from same-sex couples who are married in states where it is legal. The poll found that 56 percent approve of the ruling “providing legally married same-sex couples with the same federal benefits given to other married couples,” while 41 percent disapprove.


By a smaller margin, 51 percent to 45 percent, Americans say they approve of the court’s decision to let stand a lower court ruling that will return same-sex marriage to California.

In the Post-ABC poll, the gay marriage decisions drew strikingly different partisan reactions, while the decision on voting rights showed a deep racial disparity.

On the question about DOMA, support for the court’s decision is defined heavily by ideology, partisanship and age. The poll showed that 79 percent of self-described liberals and 68 percent of Democrats approve of the decision, while 62 percent of Republicans and 61 percent of conservatives are opposed. Over six in 10 independents and moderates approve of the decision.

The age difference was also pronounced: two-thirds of 18-29 year-olds approve, while 56 percent of those over 65 take the opposite view.

The decision was supported in every region of the country except the South, where people were pretty evenly split.

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Staunton Newleader Endorses Gay Marriage in Virginia

Last week's gay marriage rulings will be placing more and more pressure on Virginia to move into the 21st century, especially with Maryland and the District of Columbia both having marriage equality just across the Potomac River.  The Christofascists led by The Family Foundation - which deserves a hate group designation by the Southern Poverty Law Center - and their  puppets in the Virginia Republican Party will resist, but the tide is inevitable, and some are calling on Virginia to change rather than ultimate face the ignominy of another ruling like that in Loving v. Virginia.  The Staunton News Leader is leading the call:

Last week’s gay rights victories in the Supreme Court leave Virginia with this question: Will ours be one of the last states to allow same-sex marriage?

It took another Supreme Court case – Loving v. Virginia in 1967 – to make interracial marriage legal across the country. We hope the Commonwealth is not such a high-profile holdout on this century’s marriage issue.

Gay marriage will eventually become the law of the entire land. Even social conservative Gov. Bob McDonnell recognized this . . . . 

Surely many Virginians agree with our local congressman, Rep. Bob Goodlatte, in thinking that “preserving the institution of traditional marriage is crucial to the stability of our society and serves the best interest of American families.”

However, more and more of us cringe at statements like Goodlatte’s. A tradition that denies loving, committed, adult couples the privileges of marriage is a tradition our society has outgrown, much as we have segregation, forced though we were, again by the Supreme Court. Any implication that families created from gay marriages undermine “the stability of our society” is either ignorant or pandering to a segment of the population that claims to be conservative but, when it comes to social issues, is really about control over other people’s lives.

The term “family values” has been co-opted by social conservatives who want all families to look a certain way. Virginia is growing beyond this. We value all families. May our constitution soon reflect this progress.

Head hate merchant at The Family Foundation, Victoria Cobb, is likely acting like someone peed in her Cheerios if she's read this editorial.

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Wingnuts: DOMA Ruling Was As Bad As Pearl Harbor

The hysteria from the far right over the DOMA decision earlier this week continues and provides yet further proof that the Christofascists truly do either (i) live in some warped alternate reality or (ii) need serious mental health interventions.   How else to explain the intense need they display to cling to very selective passages of a book written thousands of years ago by ignorant nomads and which biblical scholars agree contains many forgeries and irregularities that make it more then obvious to sentient individuals that it's anything but the inerrant "word of God."  Illustrative of this batshitery is the ranting and whining of Lisa Van Houten of the American Decency Association (yet another "family values" organization aimed at keeping charlatans employed and living the good life while trampling on the freedoms of others).  Right Wing Watch looks at Van Houten's deranged lament:

The American Decency Association’s Lisa Van Houten is warning that the Supreme Court’s DOMA decision “will live in infamy” just like Pearl Harbor. Van Houten claims that pastors will “be prosecuted for preaching” against homosexuality and refusing to perform same-sex weddings, people will be “charged with discrimination” if they don’t “embrace homosexuality,” anti-gay groups will lose their non-profit status, and, worst of all, America will face divine punishment.

As we look back on history there are dates which we now see were crossroads, turning points for nations and cultures. July 4, 1776; June 6, 1944. December 7, 1941; January 22, 1973. Battles fought, decisions made – some establishing goodness and justice, others are dates that “will live in infamy.” 

I believe today, June 26, 2013, is the latter. A date when the United in favor of same sex marriage, and undermined true marriage – one man and one woman – which States Supreme Court ruled was instituted, not by any government, but by God. 

The homosexual agenda cannot and will not abide peaceably alongside the true, biblical institutions of marriage and family as ordained by God. As the homosexual agenda is legitimized – even by the United States Supreme Court - marriage, family, and our religious liberty will be undermined.

Consider the following short list of what may be in our future :

1. Hate crime laws will be increasingly instituted and enforced. Will pastors be prosecuted for preaching what God’s Word says regarding homosexuality and refusing to perform same sex “marriage” ceremonies?

2. Homosexuality will be a protected class by the government. Christian school teachers and administrators, pastors, business owners, etc. could be charged with discrimination if they speak out against or refuse to embrace homosexuality.

3. Organizations such as our own American Decency could easily lose their (c)3 tax-exempt, non-profit status as we continue to call homosexuality what it is - SIN.

4. God will not bless a nation that puts a stamp of approval upon that which he calls an abomination. The evidences of God’s displeasure are evident and becoming more so with each passing day.

Item No. 3 is probably her biggest worry.  That said, one can only assume that Van Houten hasn't read her Bible lately - especially the Old Testament - or else she'd know that POLYGAMY, not one man, one woman is the biblical norm for marriage.  She also needs to read the Commandment against lying and bearing false witness while she's at it.  One has to wonder what these people would do if they had to get real jobs instead of making a living disseminating lies and shaking down the gullible and ignorant.  Van Houten is little more than a con-artist trying to hide behind a veil of respectability.  She and those like her deserve no respect and certainly no deference of any kind.

P.S. Among the things Van Houten's group rants and raves is the depravity of Glee.  And not surprisingly, it has some ties to anti-gay hate group, AFA. 

Lisa Van Houten

Lisa Van Houten

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Charles Krauthammer: Nationalize Gay Marriage Now

I generally do not agree with much of anything that columnist Charles Krauthammer has to say on almost any topic.  The man drinks far, far too much of the far right Kool-Aid to be considered a rational conservative.  Hence why it is so stunning that I agree with his column today in the Washington Post which advocates for nationalizing gay marriage now.  Truth be told, taking gay marriage off the table for debate would be a huge boon for the Republican Party notwithstanding the sheets of flying spittle and abject batshitery that would erupt from the Christofascist ranks of the GOP.  Here  are highlights from his column:

[I]n the DOMA decision, the court added a second rationale: equal protection. In states with same-sex marriage, Washington must give the same federal benefits to gay couples as to straight couples because to do otherwise is to discriminate against the gay couples. After all, they are equally married in their states. For Washington to discriminate against them is to deny them equal protection of the laws. Such discrimination is nothing more than irrational animus — and therefore constitutionally inadmissible.

[B]ut if the argument is equal protection, one question is left hanging. Why should equal protection apply only in states that recognize gay marriage? Why doesn’t it apply equally — indeed, even perhaps more forcefully — to gays who want to marry in states that refuse to marry them? 

If discriminating (regarding federal benefits) between a gay couple and a straight couple is prohibited in New York where gay marriage is legal, by what logic is discrimination permitted in Texas, where a gay couple is prevented from marrying in the first place?Which is exactly where the majority’s second rationale leads — nationalizing gay marriage, the way Roe nationalized abortion. This is certainly why David Boies, the lead attorney in the companion Proposition 8 case, was so jubilant when he came out onto the courthouse steps after the ruling. He [David Boies]understood immediately that once the court finds it unconstitutional to discriminate between gay and straight couples, nationalizing gay marriage is just one step away.

So why didn’t Justice Anthony Kennedy, the traditional swing vote who wrote the majority opinion on DOMA with the court’s four liberals, take that step? Why did he avoid doing the full Roe — nationalizing the procedure in question and declaring the subject now closed? I suspect he thought it would be a bridge too far. At least for today.

But he knows that the double rationale underlying his DOMA opinion has planted the seed for going Roe next time. It was prudence, not logic, that stayed his hand. “The only thing that will ‘confine’ the Court’s holding,” wrote dissenting Justice Antonin Scalia with a bit less delicacy, “is its sense of what it can get away with.” Next case — Kennedy & Co. go all the way.

Krauthammer is correct.  Given the Court's finding of anti-gay animus as the only real motivation behind DOMA and that it does actively harm same sex couples and their families, one does have to ask why the Supreme Court did not do the right thing and make gay marriage national.  By not doing so, it is guaranteed that (i) there will be much further litigation and (ii) same sex couples in states like Virginia will experience real harm and a deprivation of equal rights.

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