Word: scalia
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...five years since Lawrence came down, this much is clear: Scalia was not all wrong. Indeed, his central point - that the decision would give sustenance to a range of challenges to gay- and sex-related laws - has proven prescient...
...matched against their joy was a storm of protests, beginning from right inside the nation's top courthouse itself. Justice Antonin Scalia read aloud from the bench his withering dissent that morning five years ago. Joined by then-Chief Justice Rehnquist and Justice Clarence Thomas, Scalia called the decision to strike down laws against sodomy "a massive disruption of the current social order," and predicted that it would lead to the collapse of laws against gay marriage, fornication, bigamy, adultery, adult incest, bestiality, and obscenity. "This effectively decrees the end of all morals legislation...
...Scalia right? Well, it depends on how you read what he said," Smith says. "If you think he meant that the decision would upend the way the law treats homosexuals, then I think he was right. But he also warned that the decision would lead to a massive social upheaval. And just like we found in Massachusetts after the gay marriage ruling, that hasn't happened at all. These laws haven't changed the way anybody else lives their life." He adds, "I didn't spend a lot of time listening to what Justice Scalia was saying. And I wasn...
...Scalia was indeed apocalyptic back in 2005. "It is clear from this that the Court has taken sides in the culture war, departing from its role of assuring, as neutral observer, that the democratic rules of engagement are observed," he wrote. "Many Americans do not want persons who openly engage in homosexual conduct as partners in their business, as scoutmasters for their children, as teachers in their children's schools, or as boarders in their home. They view this as protecting themselves and their families from a lifestyle that they believe to be immoral and destructive...
Those views are changing, and fairly quickly. But the lasting impact of Lawrence will likely be that no matter what the majority of Americans think about gays in the future, lawmakers and courts alike will find it nearly impossible to justify criminal sanctions - just as Scalia warned. Of course, Scalia's wasn't the only one who spoke about gays that day. "The State cannot demean their existence or control their destiny by making their private sexual conduct a crime," Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote in the majority opinion. "Their right to liberty under the Due Process Clause gives them...