Justice Scalia and his obscenities

Justice Scalia is guilty of two public obscenities. One he admits and one he lies about. Recently when the Supreme Court Justice left a church service he was asked what he had to say to people who question his objectivity on the issue of separation of church and state. Scalia made a gesture widely considered obscene and said: "To my critics, I say, vaffanculo." The term is Italian and means "fuck you". If you don't believe me google it and see. Scalia is saying it didn't happen. He eventually admitted the gesture, as a photograph exists showing it, but then cited a book to claim it had a different meaning. But journalists who checked the book say it was referring to a very different gesture not the one Scalia made.

As disgusting as this is for a justice of the Surpeme Court the real obscenity was an earlier statement he made.

He was in Europe speaking at a law school and said: "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.'

Scalia's interpretation comes directly from the extreme Left. The Bill of Rights does not grant rights, it recognises some rights, but it does not grant any rights at all. The Constitution was never meant to be a list of rights but a litany of powers. Government has the power to do that which is specifically granted by the Constitution and NOTHING else. The Founders said that it would be impossible to list all the rights which people possess. Instead, since government powers are clear and few, they would enumerate the funcitons of the state while refusing to list the rights of the people. The 9th Amendment even specifically says that the Constitution is not meant to delineate rights at all and that the absence of a right from the Bill of Rights should not be construed to mean it does not exist.

The real issue never was one about whether or not the Constitution specifically says people have a right to be homosexual. The issue is, and always was, whether the Constitution grants the power to regulate people's private lives to government. If the government is not granted such a power then the power does not exist. And I assure you that you will search the Constitution in vain looking for such an enumerated power.

Scalia's view is extremely authoritarian. He is saying that only the very few rights mentioned in the Bill of Rights reside with the people. While govenrment power is vast and expansive and only limited by the few rights mentioned. That is not the view of the Founders at all.

Scalia previously caused a ruckus when speaking to a right-wing Christian school. He had banned all recordings of his public speech. A journalist covering the talk had a tape recorder to make sure that the Justice was quoted accurately. Federal Marshals grabbed the tape recorder and erased the tape. At the time Scalia invoked the "right not to speak on radio or television when I do not wish to do so." Of course that is not one of the rights listed in the Bill of Rights either. But Scalia is willing to invoke rights not enumerated in the Constitution when it suits his purposes. Of course the question is whether a Surpreme Court justice can invoke such a right to not have his comments reported when he is making a publc speech. Scalia has a very odd view of the Constitution. I suspect, that given the current make up of the court, that he is the Justice least inclined to support individual liberty.