Image via Wikipedia44 - Scalia: Constitution does not protect women against discriminationJustice Antonin Scalia has weighed in on the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, leaving women's rights activists seething.
In an interview with California Lawyer, Scalia said that the Constitution itself does not protect women and gay men and lesbians from discrimination. Such protections are up to the legislative branch, he said.
In 1868, when the 39th Congress was debating and ultimately proposing the 14th Amendment, I don't think anybody would have thought that equal protection applied to sex discrimination, or certainly not to sexual orientation. So does that mean that we've gone off in error by applying the 14th Amendment to both?
Yes, yes. Sorry, to tell you that. ... But, you know, if indeed the current society has come to different views, that's fine. You do not need the Constitution to reflect the wishes of the current society. Certainly the Constitution does not require discrimination on the basis of sex. The only issue is whether it prohibits it. It doesn't. Nobody ever thought that that's what it meant. Nobody ever voted for that. If the current society wants to outlaw discrimination by sex, hey we have things called legislatures, and they enact things called laws. You don't need a constitution to keep things up-to-date. All you need is a legislature and a ballot box. You don't like the death penalty anymore, that's fine. You want a right to abortion? There's nothing in the Constitution about that. But that doesn't mean you cannot prohibit it. Persuade your fellow citizens it's a good idea and pass a law. That's what democracy is all about. It's not about nine superannuated judges who have been there too long, imposing these demands on society.
This is not the first time Scalia has weighed in on the 14th Amendment as it relates to the protection of women's rights. In September, Scalia told an audience at the University of California's Hastings College of the Law that, "If the current society wants to outlaw discrimination by sex...you have legislatures."
In 1996, Scalia was the only justice to dissent in the Supreme Court decision that ended the 157-year tradition of state-supported, all-male education at Virginia Military Institute. In his dissent in the case United States v. Virginia, Scalia wrote:
...the tradition of having government funded military schools for men is as well rooted in the traditions of this country as the tradition of sending only men into military combat. The people may decide to change the one tradition, like the other, through democratic processes; but the assertion that either tradition has been unconstitutional through the centuries is not law, but politics smuggled into law.
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Republican jurists who oppose civil rights live Scalia and Thomas illustrate the fundamental principle that elections have consequences. Please remember this principle when you vote once more for president in 2012. The most lasting legacy of any president is their judicial nominations, not just the Supreme Court but also to the inferior federal courts.
John H. Armwood
Well it is much more an inconvenience for men in that instance. If SCOTUS has already decided a human is a human in utero, and all human beings are female in utero during growth and development, then not one individual is covered by the fourteenth amendment because all males have a historical significance as life lived as females.
ReplyDeleteAs a widow and a mother of a soon-to-be 29 yr old, instead scalia "weighing in" on this, he should weigh in on a scale and go on a diet. He looks a tad hypertensive and barrel chested in this picture, indicating he is not long for this world because of his health habits. Probably has gout too. Hope he takes better care of himself than this picture shows.
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