Word: blackmun
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...there is one gap in the Arizonian's learning, though, it is in the intricacies of poultry production. Blackmun said one of his rare trivial triumphs occurred when Rehnquist could not name the top five poultry producing states. That was a bit of arcania only Blackmun could answer correctly because of a case he presided over as a judge on the Eighth Circuit Court...
Associate Court Justices William J. Brennan and Harry A. Blackmun made this earthshattering disclosure in an unannounced question-and-answer session held yesterday at the Law School. According to these two arbiters of the law, their future boss, William H. Rehnquist, plays a mean game of trivia...
Included on the guest list were Sens. Edward M. Kennedy '54 (D-Mass.) and John F. Kerry (D-Mass.), Supreme Court Justices Harry A. Blackmun '29 and William J. Brennan, Gov. Michael Dukakis, Saudi Arabia's top oil man, Sheikh Ahmed Zaki Yamani, and the Aga Khan '58. Members of the Corporation, the Board of Overseers, Radcliffe Trustees, several prominent faculty members, Bok's children and selected alumni were also invited...
...Condemnation of those practices is firmly rooted in Judeo-Christian moral and ethical standards," said Chief Justice Burger in concurring with Justice White's majority opinion. "Homosexual sodomy was a capital crime under Roman law . . ." The same line of argument could presumably be made to support slavery, and Justice Blackmun's dissent offered a spirited rebuke from Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.: "It is revolting to have no better reason for a rule of law than that it was laid down in the time of Henry IV. It is still more revolting if the grounds upon which it was laid down...
Supporters of gay rights quite naturally criticize the court's decision, but there is a more fundamental point in Justice Blackmun's dissent. "A necessary corollary of giving individuals freedom to choose how to conduct their lives is acceptance of the fact that different individuals will make different choices," he wrote. "It is precisely because the issue raised by this case touches the heart of what makes individuals what they are that we should be especially sensitive to the rights of those whose choices upset the majority." In this, Blackmun was echoing a famous argument by Holmes: "If there...