interesting shit at times:

A tape of a speech given earlier this month by Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia has drawn the ire of LGBT civil rights activists who worry the landmark high court ruling on sodomy could be revisited.

Scalia rarely speaks to the media and seldom allows the press into speeches he gives but a recording of a March 8 address at the University of Freiberg in Switzerland was obtained by CNN.

In one portion of the speech to law students at the university Scalia brings up the issue of homosexuality.

“Question comes up: is there a constitutional right to homosexual conduct? Not a hard question for me. It’s absolutely clear that nobody ever thought when the Bill of Rights was adopted that it gave a right to homosexual conduct. Homosexual conduct was criminal for 200 years in every state. Easy question.”

Now, let’s leave aside for the moment how obviously absurd it would be to attempt to enforce laws against homosexual “conduct”, make this at least somewhat of a challenge. By Scalia’s reasoning, what is “Constitutional” is whatever is in the Bill of Rights explicitly — if it doesn’t say we have a right, then we don’t. Sounds simple. After all, Scalia is regarded as a “strict constructionist”, right?

Take a look at the 9th and 10th amendments, then read that last part again. You may laugh now.

We have rights that are not listed in the Constitution. The Constitution itself says so. Why were there anti-gay laws then? Two reasons: 1) at the time it was assumed that only the US congress was bound by the Bill of Rights & not the states, and 2) typical human hypocrisy (we had slavery for many of those years too, don’t be dumb).

Rulings supporting gay rights are in line with the Constitution not because of some line that says so, but because there are no lines authorizing the construction of an apparatus to enforce otherwise. Why do I, some dude with a blog, know that but someone on the Supreme Court doesn’t?

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