Slia on Gay Rights: ‘The Court Has Taken Sis the Culture War’ - The New York Tim

Contents:

• ANTON SLIA ROUTELY LED AGAST GAY RIGHTS. THOSE OPNS EXPLA HIS PHILOSOPHY.
• JTIC KENNEDY AND SLIA AND THEIR DIVI ON GAY RIGHTS
• JTICE SLIA TOOK OFFENSE AT THIS QUTN ABOUT GAY RIGHTS
• JTICE ANTON SLIA'S PROVOTIVE COMMENTS ON GAY ISSU
• ANTON SLIA: SCOTUS LOGIC ON GAY RIGHTS COULD LEAD TO PROTECTNS FOR CHILD ABERS
• THE SUPREME COURT: HOMOSEXUAL RIGHTS; JUSTICES, 6-3, LEGALIZE GAY SEXUAL CONDUCT IN SWEEPING REVERSAL OF COURT'S '86 RULING

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

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. 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.

JTIC KENNEDY AND SLIA AND THEIR DIVI ON GAY RIGHTS

This week's historic hearg on same-sex marriage is both the logil extensn and ultimate showdown a s-long argument that so far Kennedy has always of Kennedy's bold and lyril lgs on behalf of gays — "tim n bld to certa tths and later generatns n see that laws once thought necsary and proper fact serve only to opprs, " he wrote Lawrence v. Kennedy has wrten all of the Supreme Court's most important cisns on gay rights: protectg the civil rights of homosexuals Romer v.

Wdsor two years ago that the feral ernment mt regnize same-sex was a steppgstone to the Supreme Court’s nsiratn on Tuday of whether the Constutn forbids stat om prohibg gay upl to the pattern ntu and the urt renrs a landmark lg favorg gay marriage, will likely once aga be Kennedy whose words memorialize that cisn and Slia who will articulate the is not a nflict everyone would have predicted for two of Ronald Reagan’s choic for the urt.

JTICE SLIA TOOK OFFENSE AT THIS QUTN ABOUT GAY RIGHTS

(Vio: Julie Percha/The Washgton Post)"Their different approach to gay rights reflects their more fundamental disagreement about how to thk about the liberti protected by the Constutn, " said Pl M.

JTICE ANTON SLIA'S PROVOTIVE COMMENTS ON GAY ISSU

"Michael Dorf, a profsor at Cornell Law School and a former Kennedy clerk, said his former boss’s cisns on gay rights were not nstcted to lead ultimately to a cisn on same-sex marriage.

ANTON SLIA: SCOTUS LOGIC ON GAY RIGHTS COULD LEAD TO PROTECTNS FOR CHILD ABERS

”Although he never led for gay rights as a lower urt judge, Kennedy exprsed ncern about the policy even as he upheld the ary's right to dismiss gay servicemen.

“He me about as close as you n as a lower urt judge to sayg was wrongly cid, ” Colucci on the urt, Kennedy was able to say jt the first gay rights se, Romer, Kennedy wrote for the majory strikg down a Colorado nstutnal amendment. After some ci the state began passg laws protectg gays om discrimatn hog, employment and other areas, voters through a referendum approved the amendment precludg such ernment protectns.

THE SUPREME COURT: HOMOSEXUAL RIGHTS; JUSTICES, 6-3, LEGALIZE GAY SEXUAL CONDUCT IN SWEEPING REVERSAL OF COURT'S '86 RULING

Colorado’s amendment, Kennedy wrote, “classifi homosexuals not to further a proper legislative end but to make them unequal to everyone else. "This urt has no bs imposg upon all Amerins the rolutn favored by the ele class om which the members of this stutn are selected, pronouncg that 'animosy' toward homosexualy is evil, " Slia wrote Romer.

" Private, homosexual nduct between nsentg adults, he wrote, "volv liberty of the person both s spatial and more transcennt dimensns. "O’Connor wrote a ncurrg opn to say the lg did not touch on the matter of whether gays would be able to 's rponse: "Do not believe . "Slia wrote that homosexuals should be ee to promote their e through mocratic means, but “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.

’ ”Two years ago, Wdsor, Kennedy wrote that the feral ernment's refal to offer the same ernment benefs available to heterosexual upl to legally married gay upl tells "all the world that their otherwise valid marriag are unworthy" and "huiat" their, Slia blasted the cisn, sayg the majory was merely beg y sayg the cisn did not addrs whether stat are required to give licens for same-sex marriage.