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.

JTIC KENNEDY AND SLIA AND THEIR DIVI ON GAY RIGHTS

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. 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.

JTICE SLIA TOOK OFFENSE AT THIS QUTN ABOUT GAY RIGHTS

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. (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.

"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. ”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. Colorado’s amendment, Kennedy wrote, “classifi homosexuals not to further a proper legislative end but to make them unequal to everyone else.

JTICE ANTON SLIA'S PROVOTIVE COMMENTS ON GAY ISSU

"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.

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.

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

""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. ” While Jtice Slia sisted “I have nothg agast homosexuals, ” he said that “the Court has taken sis the culture war, partg om s role of assurg,.

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. “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.

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. “[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. 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.

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

“Men and women, heterosexuals and homosexuals, are all subject to [Texas’] prohibn of viate sexual terurse wh someone of the same sex. ” 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. Countls dividuals, cludg gay marriage platiff Jim Obergefell, have paid their rpects to Jtice Slia for his years of service on the natn's hight urt, regnizg the almost parable fluence he has had Amerin law and polics sce he was nomated by Print Reagan 1986.

While ndolenc are appropriate at this time, we feel 's also equally appropriate to remember jt how stnchly Slia opposed gay rights throughout his tenure on the Supreme Court.

Slia pared homosexuals to other such “reprehensible” tegori of dividuals such as murrers, polygamists, and people who beat animals his 1996 dissent Romer v.