Supreme Court gay marriage arguments: The 8 most awkward moments - POLITICO

Contents:

• JTICE ANTON SLIA'S PROVOTIVE COMMENTS ON GAY ISSU
• JTICE SLIA'S GAY MARRIAGE ADVICE: 'ASK THE NEART HIPPIE'
• READ SLIA GAY MARRIAGE DISSENT: SUPREME COURT JTICE SLAMS 'CONSTUTNAL REVISN'
• GAY STUNT ASKS JTICE SLIA TO FEND HIS 'BTIALY' MENTS
• GAY MARRIAGE: IT'S A 'JUDICIAL PUTSCH' WARNS DISSENTG SLIA
• ANTON SLIA ROUTELY LED AGAST GAY RIGHTS. THOSE OPNS EXPLA HIS PHILOSOPHY.
• JTIC KENNEDY AND SLIA AND THEIR DIVI ON GAY RIGHTS
• THE BCHIT QUOT OM SLIA’S GAY MARRIAGE DISSENT
• GAY MARRIAGE ARGUMENTS DIVI SUPREME COURT JTIC
• JTICE SLIA IS STILL HOPPG MAD OVER THE GAY MARRIAGE RULG

JTICE ANTON SLIA'S PROVOTIVE COMMENTS ON GAY ISSU

” Fally, Slia warned that the lg to extend marriage rights to gay upl across the untry would rob the urt of s power: “Hubris is sometim fed as o’erweeng pri; and pri, we know, goeth before a fall. Related: Anton Slia: The Supreme Court Jtice's Life PicturFunny or not, here are some of Slia's most ntroversial opns and most outrageo quot:On Gay Rights:From the pot that the Supreme Court first led favor of gay rights 1996, when the majory led that stat uld ban discrimatory acts agast gay people, Slia's opn on the subject had some crgg.

But I had thought that one uld nsir certa nduct reprehensible — murr, for example, or polygamy, or celty to animals — and uld exhib even 'anim' toward such nduct, " Slia wrote his speakg at Prceton 2012, Slia was asked by a stunt why he would pare laws banng homosexualy wh laws agast murr. ""I'm surprised you aren't persuad, " Slia told the stunt, who intifi as 2012, Slia said homosexualy should be illegal bee had been a crime for so long.

For 200 years, was crimal every state, " he June, nearly two s after Slia wrote his first dissent on gay rights, the Supreme Court legalized gay marriage famolysuggted his dissent to "ask the neart hippie, " while argug that "Freedom of Intimacy is abridged rather than expand by marriage. Slia's Most Controversial Quotabl on the Topic of Gay MarriageMarch 26, 2013 — -- Sce his appotment to the Supreme Court 1986, Jtice Anton Slia has livered some of the most ntroversial statements heard om the natn's hight of his most notable ments centered on issu pertag to gay rights, the most ntroversial of which are listed v. Evans -- 1996In this 1996 se, the Supreme Court led favor of gay rights for the first time.

JTICE SLIA'S GAY MARRIAGE ADVICE: 'ASK THE NEART HIPPIE'

The urt's majory led that dividual stat had the right to ban discrimatory practic agast gay people, wh Slia among those dissentg. Unrgraduate stunt Dunn Hosie found Slia's prev statements "extremely offensive" as a homosexual and took the opportuny to ask him about his past parisons of homosexualy to btialy and murr.

Right after Mary Bonto, the lawyer challengg marriage bans several stat, pleted her argument, a spectator rose om a back row and started screamg, “If you support gay marriage, you will burn Hell! ” Ined, there’s every reason to believe that Slia more or ls shared the protter’s view of the immoraly of homosexualy, and that he regards the Court’s toleratn of gay people as one of the great disasters of his nearly three s as a ’s unter-outburst was a notable ntrast to the rpectful tone of the rt of the argument, cludg om his fellow-nservativ.

READ SLIA GAY MARRIAGE DISSENT: SUPREME COURT JTICE SLAMS 'CONSTUTNAL REVISN'

It is one measure of the succs of the gay-rights movement that all the other Jtic felt pelled to phrase their qutns ways that honored the humany of gay people.

After Bonto said that gay people should be allowed to jo the stutn of marriage, Chief Jtice Roberts replied, “Well, you say ‘jo’ the stutn.

)Jtice Elena Kagan battered John Bursch, the lawyer for Michigan, wh var versns of the same qutn: What ernmental tert was the state servg by excludg gays om the stutn of marriage? ” Bursch uld never really say what those nsequenc were, nor uld he expla why heterosexual-only marriage had to be prerved for the sake of the children when lots of straight people don’t have kids and lots of gay and lbian people most likely oute still looks like a victory for the plantiffs and marriage equaly all fifty stat. At a mimum, even before the cisn is announced, the argument self was an example of how much the untry, and the Court, has changed on the subject of gay rights.

GAY STUNT ASKS JTICE SLIA TO FEND HIS 'BTIALY' MENTS

One le Supreme Court Jtice Anton Slia's dissent on gay marriage ptured the public imagatn after Friday's historic cisn. ” Judgg by the thgs he has said urt or wrten his legal opns about gays and lbians, he don’t really mean . Dpe Slia’s long public history of exprsg revulsn and ntempt for gays and lbians, on the subject of whether people of the same sex should be allowed to marry, he is among the ne people whose opns will really matter.

GAY MARRIAGE: IT'S A 'JUDICIAL PUTSCH' WARNS DISSENTG SLIA

Texas, the se challengg a Texas law that crimalized homosexual sex, Slia me up wh a tastels analogy to illtrate the issue.

In his dissent Lawrence, Slia argued that moral objectns to homosexualy were sufficient jtifitn for crimalizg gay sex.

“Many Amerins do not want persons who openly engage homosexual nduct as partners their bs, as sutmasters for their children, as teachers their children’s schools, or as boarrs their home, ” he wrote. Surely that is the only sort of ‘anim’ at issue here: moral disapproval of homosexual nduct[.

ANTON SLIA ROUTELY LED AGAST GAY RIGHTS. THOSE OPNS EXPLA HIS PHILOSOPHY.

Slia cid to take the “moral disapproval” argument up a notch his dissent Lawrence, wrg that the Texas ban on homosexual sex “unniably seeks to further the belief of s cizens that certa forms of sexual behavr are ‘immoral and unacceptable, '” like laws agast “fornitn, bigamy, adultery, adult ct, btialy, and obsceny. “[Colorado’s ban] prohibs special treatment of homosexuals, and nothg more, ” Slia wrote. “[I]t would prevent the State or any municipaly om makg ath benef payments to the ‘life partner’ of a homosexual when do not make such payments to the long time roommate of a nonhomosexual employee.

JTIC KENNEDY AND SLIA AND THEIR DIVI ON GAY RIGHTS

In one sectn, he plas that banng discrimatn based on sexual orientatn hirg amounts to grantg gays and lbians special treatment that Republins, adulterers, and Cubs haters don’t get. ” But Slia poted out that gays and lbians uld jt have sex wh people of the oppose sex stead. “Men and women, heterosexuals and homosexuals, are all subject to [Texas’] prohibn of viate sexual terurse wh someone of the same sex.

Protters opposed to gay marriage rallied ont of the Supreme Court Washgton on Thursday. Urt ultimately cid to end the ban on gay marriage, lg that the 14th Amendment requir stat to marry same-sex upl as well as regnize their marriag legally performed other stat.

THE BCHIT QUOT OM SLIA’S GAY MARRIAGE DISSENT

ET -- Jt days after the Supreme Court announced would take s first ser look at gay marriage, Jtice Anton Slia was asked to fend his legal wrgs on Supreme Court jtice was visg Prceton Universy on Monday to discs his latt book when a llege hman, who intifi as gay, asked Slia about the parison he has drawn between laws banng sodomy wh those barrg btialy and murr.

Slia had dissented the se; his dissent, he mak a uple of parisons to laws agast btialy and clar, "nowhere do the Court’s opn clare that homosexual sodomy is a 'fundamental right.

He didn’t jt alienate liberals by parg laws agast gay sex to laws agast murr and btialy, he has alienated laws nservativ have nmned. It didn’t make sense to me, " he Supreme Court will be reviewg California's ban on same-sex marriage and a feral law that f marriage as only the legal unn of a man and a woman  March, wh a cisn expected by late has "not been opaque" about his feelgs toward same-sex marriage the past, and gay rights advot do not expect him to change his md when the Supreme Court hears the s the sprg, said Fred Saz, vice print of munitns at Human Rights Campaign, the natn's largt gay rights anizatn. He cloaked his opn warm words for the gay rights activists he knew would cheer the urt's actn.

GAY MARRIAGE ARGUMENTS DIVI SUPREME COURT JTIC

"However heartened the proponents of same-sex marriage might be on this day, is worth acknowledgg what they have lost, and lost forever: the opportuny to w the te acceptance that om persuadg their fellow cizens of the jtice of their e, " he source, Getty ImagImage ptn, Jtice Anton Slia lls the gay marriage cisn a "judicial Putsch"It is the role of legislatur to terme social policy, he nclud, not judg. "The majory opn, as one might expect given the snt evince that the pla text of the Constutn explicly guarante a right to gay marriage, is a total ms, " they wre. Perhaps no cha of s monstrated this better than Slia's very nsistent opposn to gay rights.

In his view, wasn't so much that he was opposed to gay rights — although he was — but that such rights simply weren't protected by a very origalist terpretatn of the Constutn and s amendments.

At the heart of Slia's opposn to gay rights was his view that the US Constutn simply did not protect the rights of gay people. So the three major s that me to the urt sce 2003, Slia oped agast gay rights sometim btal dissents.

JTICE SLIA IS STILL HOPPG MAD OVER THE GAY MARRIAGE RULG

His lleagu, of urse, argued that the 14th Amendment protected gay people — by forbiddg any level of ernment om passg discrimatory laws that nied people their fundamental rights. Slia rejected the view, claimg the Constutn, the 14th Amendment, and their amers ma no mentn of gay rights and therefore did not tend to protect gay people.

Texas 2003, where the Court led that stat' anti-sodomy laws — which effectively banned gay sex — were unnstutnal, Slia warned his dissent that the logic ed to strike down the lg uld upend stat' laws agast same-sex marriage:. The Supreme Court reasoned that all the anti-gay laws were unnstutnal for largely the same reason: They discrimated agast a group of people by whholdg fundamental rights and vlated the 14th Amendment.

Slia's stance on gay rights monstrated his origalist view: He believed the Constutn uldn't protect gay rights, bee no one uld envisn, for example, same-sex marriage as an issue back when the Constutn and s amendments were wrten. So Slia's view, the urt's pro–gay rights cisns read rights and lims to the Constutn that simply didn't exist, and therefore allowed the Court to strike down laws that were, his opn, nstutnally valid. Kennedy and Anton Slia were born the same year, chosen by the same print, live on the same Northern Virgia street and, servg together on the Supreme Court longer than any other current pair of jtic, have many tim voted the same nservative one issue — how the Constutn protects gay cizens — divis and f the two like no other.