Counter-Point: So what? He IS a homophobe

I'm going to have to, respectfully, disagree with Abigail here, and since I know she won't back down from a healthy debate, I'm sure she won't mind.

I don't think Mr. Frank did anything wrong in calling Justice Scalia a homophobe because its the truth. And its possible that Scalia both thinks that states should regulate sexual conduct AND is a homophobe. The two are not mutually exclusive. Frank never claimed to be a constitutional law scholar, nor does he need to be. But he certainly understands the lean of the Court when he says that it wouldn't be good for gay marriage to go before the Supreme Court. This is almost certainly the case.

Unfortunately we can't point to a ton of public speeches on the subject, because Scalia is an extremely smart man who knows he can't be going around making public declarations on his policy positions and still maintain the illusion of impartiality as a jurist. One example is when he did address the Urban Family Council - an anti-gay advocacy group - while the court was considering the decision in Lawrence v. Texas. The dinner also honored the retiring Cardinal Anthony Bevilacqua of Philadelphia, who has said homosexuality is "an aberration, a moral evil," and is among the most outspoken opponents of a Phiadelphia life-partners ordinance. I'm pretty sure no one in PFLAG was going to attend that.

But what Scalia has written in his opinions are enough to prove the point. Think Progess offers some great example:

In Romer v. Evans, he basically said that animus toward gay people was just as defensible as animus toward polygamy, murder, and animal cruelty:

Of course it is our moral heritage that one should not hate any human being or class of human beings. But I had thought that one could consider certain conduct reprehensible — murder, for example, or polygamy, or cruelty to animals — and could exhibit even “animus” toward such conduct. Surely that is the only sort of “animus” at issue here: moral disapproval of homosexual conduct.”

And in the Lawrence oral arguments, he stated the potential harm to children from gay kindergarten teachers was “Only that children might be induced to follow the path to homosexuality.”

From his Lawrence dissent:

The Texas statute undeniably seeks to further the belief of its citizens that certain forms of sexual behavior are “immoral and unacceptable,” Bowers, supra, at 196–the same interest furthered by criminal laws against fornication, bigamy, adultery, adult incest, bestiality, and obscenity.

I'm not going to get into a constitutional argument here, but these cases are really about Equal Protection, not state regulation of sex acts. Cetainly not Romer which is about banning legal protections for a class of people based on perfectly LEGAL sex acts. Go back and read the Romer quote and sub-out "homosexual" for Jewish or Catholic or black or red-haired and then tell me that Justice Scalia isn't a homophobe. He's right that some people do have the same kind of animus towards gays as they do towards the criminals he mentioned. Justice Scalia either agrees with them, or sees nothing wrong with that.

I'd also like to add that I don't think there is anything wrong with calling someone out on a disgusting prejudice. Would it have been "disrespectful" for a member of the House to have called Senator Strom Thurman a racist? How about another governor saying the same of George Wallace? I know Abigail wants politicans to speak the truth and not sugar coat things in the usual non-committal Hill-speak. Well here's an example. Barney Frank just got on TV and said something that everyone else in America knows to be true - Antonin Scalia is a homophobe. Personally, I wish other members would be so frank. Maybe then we'd have a more open discourse in this country.

Sorry if that might have gotten a little angry there, Abby, but I got angry at Scalia during the writing, not towards your points.