Monday, February 15, 2016

Rest in peace, Justice Scalia

I am saddened by the loss of a 'great American, defender of our Constitution and a devout Catholic — Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia. 

A couple great examples of what made me admire him can be found in a speech he gave to the Knights of Columbus several years ago where he said:

"If I have brought any message today, it is this: Have the courage to have your wisdom regarded as stupidity. Be fools for Christ. And have the courage to suffer the contempt of the sophisticated world."

"God assumed from the beginning that the wise of the world would view Christians as fools ... and he has not been disappointed."

Justice Scalia stayed true to his sworn duty to uphold the Constitution despite the political winds of the moment. On many occasions he did so with provocatively expressed legal arguments which earned him the respect of political conservatives and the enmity of the liberal legal establishment.

One of his greatest dissents was in the recent 2015 Supreme Court opinion, Obergfell v. Hodges, making same–sex marriages a constitutional right.

Insights he shared on that ruling include the following:
 
“I write separately to call attention to this Court’s threat to American democracy.”

“Today’s decree says that my Ruler, and the Ruler of 320 million Americans coast-to-coast, is a majority of the nine lawyers on the Supreme Court.”

“This practice of constitutional revision by an unelected committee of nine, always accompanied (as it is today) by extravagant praise of liberty, robs the People of the most important liberty they asserted in the Declaration of Independence and won in the Revolution of 1776: the freedom to govern themselves.”

“This is a naked judicial claim to legislative—indeed, super-legislative—power; a claim fundamentally at odds with our system of government. 

“A system of government that makes the People subordinate to a committee of nine unelected lawyers does not deserve to be called a democracy.”

“To allow the policy question of same-sex marriage to be considered and resolved by a select, patrician, highly unrepresentative panel of nine is to violate a principle even more fundamental than no taxation without representation: no social transformation without representation.”

“What really astounds is the hubris reflected in today’s judicial Putsch.”'

A great mind has been silenced indeed. My thoughts and prayers are with Justice Scalia's family. May he rest in peace. 

From Thomas More Law Center

1 comment:

  1. The supream court has been stepping in to settle arguments throughout their existence. The ruling last summer that gave gay men and lesbians the right to a civil marriage is no difrent than granting civil rights to black America 50 years ago. We could still have separate but equal in some states if the court did not intervene to unite the country. And none of their ruling has anything to do with the blessings one receives from a church wedding. Clergy have been protected from law suit all along. Church weddind and civil weddings, separation of church and state, two different thing. Civil marriage is not recognized by the Catholic church, regardless of the sexual make-up of the couple getting married because a civil marriage doesn't have the blessings of any church affiliation. Your intentions are clear. You could have picked any ruling, why this one? I view this commentary as a cheep shot to revive your discrimination and hate for LGBTQ. Mark Cichewicz

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