The death of Antonin Scalia promises to open up a political battle that will play itself out throughout the entire presidential race. That will leave us plenty of time to reflect upon the many ways in which Scalia shaped the direction of the Supreme Court (almost always for the worse) and how his successor could change the course of future cases.
In the meantime, though, the assessments of Scalia’s legacy are flying fast and furious. He was alternately God’s instrument on the Court or the most vile person who ever lived. Either would be quite the accomplishment.
Scalia was high on the LGBT community’s list of enemies. Nonetheless, you can miss your enemies, even if you are grateful that they can no longer do you more harm.
Here are five reasons why we’re going to miss Antonin Scalia.
How about we take this to the next level?
Our newsletter is like a refreshing cocktail (or mocktail) of LGBTQ+ entertainment and pop culture, served up with a side of eye-candy.
1 He never hid his homophobia
Scalia never bothered to cloak his homophobia in polite language. Not for him the wishy-washy language of politicians asking for respect for both sides. Scalia happily discussed “the so-called homosexual agenda.” He wondered aloud “If we cannot have moral feelings against homosexuality, can we have it against murder?” He defended the “many Americans [who] 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.” No wonder his fellow dissenters in last year’s marriage ruling issued opinions separate from his. You never had to ask where you stood with Scalia. He was refreshingly candid. You always knew he hated you.
2 He paved the way for marriage equality
Ironically, one of Scalia’s final legacies was providing the legal argument in favor of marriage equality. The justice had been predicting that marriage equality was inevitable as far back as the 2003 Supreme Court decision striking down sodomy laws. “State laws against bigamy, same-sex marriage, adult incest, prostitution, masturbation, adultery, fornication, bestiality, and obscenity … every single one of these laws is called into question by today’s decision,” Scalia predicted. But it was his dissent in the 2013 Supreme Court ruling that really helped the cause he despised. The first ruling punted on whether marriage was a national right. Scalia excoriated the majority for not reaching the logical conclusion that it was. No doubt to his dismay, Scalia’s dissent was cited by federal judges striking down state bans on marriage, building on the momentum that made marriage an inevitable right.
3 He showed how far we’ve come
If you weren’t around at the time of Scalia’s appointment to the bench 30 years ago, you probably don’t realize just how much Scalia’s rhetoric was common then. The kind of broad condemnation of anything LGBT that made it easy to paint Scalia as an extremist in the 2010s was all too common in the 1980s. His appointment came the year that the Supreme Court upheld states’ right to criminalize gay sex. The AIDS epidemic was escalating, and with it hysteria against people with AIDS. Gay activism was still in its early stages, with ACT UP still not formed. A lot changed in three decades, but Scalia did not. What would have been perfectly acceptable when he was appointed is now considered by the majority of Americans to be bigotry. As such, he’s a handy marker against which to measure social progress.
4 Occasionally he was even right
Never on an LGBT issue, of course. But there are a few decisions that Scalia made that actually advanced individual rights. He supported the rights of protesters to burn the American flag, although he called the main figure in the case “a bearded weirdo.” He wrote the majority opinion in a landmark case that provided First Amendment protection to the makers of violent video games. He vehemently objected to the rights of states to collect DNA from suspects without their consent. Those decisions don’t make Scalia any less a doctrinaire conservative. But they are a reminder that every once in a great while, he could be on the right side of the argument.
5 He was entertaining
No matter how much you disagreed with Scalia, you have to give him credit for an in-your-face kind of entertainment. When he disagreed with a majority opinion, particularly on LGBT issues, his head would explode in a display of written pyrotechnics that lit up the sky for miles around. Even when you disagreed with Scalia, you had to acknowledge that he had a brilliant knack of taking the arcane details of the law and rendering them into vivid language that made it come alive. No other Supreme Court justice would label his colleagues’ opinions “legal argle-bargle” or “the mystical aphorisms of the fortune cookie.” It was a sight to behold. And let’s not forget that obscene gesture he made to a reporter on the steps of a church.
You won’t see Ruth Bader Ginsburg doing that.
Winter79
He was also 100% correct on the subject of Chicago deep-dish pizza, i.e. that it isn’t really pizza.
… seriously, though, Scalia was probably the best opinion-writer that SCOTUS has had in a long time. He was right less than 1% of the time – but when he WAS right, he generally knocked it out of the fucking park.
Manknee Aeizona
Christopher Hayward
I know I will not miss him.
Glücklich
What the fuck’s up with this fucked up comments section? Not even “moderated,” just evaporating into the ether.
Billy Budd
Come on, he was just an idiot. A plain idiot with power in his hands.
Brian
I sometimes wonder if Scalia hid homosexual desires within himself. A lot of straight-identifying men have homosexual desires but keep them hidden because they don’t want anything to do with them. When they do this, they become quite anti-homosexual in their views.
The hiding of homosexual desire is not a healthy thing. All men should accept it as a natural part of themselves.
Aranos
He was just one of those homophobic public figures who are part to all these gay teenage (and adult) suicides by making them feel worthless, so he too had blood on his hands. Why should we miss him? He used his power in an irresponsible and immature way. Did he only once read a scientific work about Homosexuality? Obviously not, or he would have changed his opinion. Even though it would have been his duty to inform himself before voicing his destructive opinion, especially as a member of the supreme court. How on earth can such a moron become a member of the supreme court???
If hell existed, he’d be right down there by now.
GG
He was entertaining? If watching your loved ones getting murdered by an ax-weilding psychopathic serial killer is entertaining, then yes, he was entertaining.
jimontp
MISS him? Are you fu-King nuts? Because he defended the rights of violent video game producers, while at the same time railing insanely against gay people? He ENCOURAGED Americans to discriminate against us. He gave a “respected Supreme Court” voice to encourage homophobic inequality and violence. Will I miss that? For all his small government BS, he believed states could interfere with a woman’s health care and decisions with her doctor. His opinions would have created second class status for Blacks and Latinos. He NEVER quite got that HIS Catholic beliefs did not override Constitional guarantees of separation of church and state. And he ALWAYS found a way to guarantee that the dangers of global climate change were less important that coal/oil corporate interests. You’d think that a man who fathered THIRTEEN children might have some concern for their future, but no. How fitting that he died on a “resort” for rich Republicans to kill animals. Do ANY gays really miss this virulently homophobic man? Please tell me WHY?
Michael Finnegan
“Mere factual innocence is no reason not to carry out a death sentence properly reached.” -Justice Scalia
rand503
@jimontp: Bravo.
DamianHart
“The truly horrible sacrifice all consideration, even in death.”
The world is better off with him.
Someone’s quote: “We should only speak nice of the dead. He’s dead. And that’s nice.”
Stache
@jimontp:I don’t think you’ll find a logical answer. It would be like asking a Jew why he loves the Nazis.
JohnAGJ
I suppose if the point of this is to mention times when he was right, so as not to speak ill of the dead, than I’d give him props for his dissent in Kelo vs. City of New London. That was the disastrous 2005 decision which some of those on the Court that others like to praise for being pro-LGBT, lost their ever-loving minds on eminent domain. Those Justices who are usually seen as being anti-LGBT were right on that.
Beyond this, I’ll stick with how I was raised and just say R.I.P. Scalia.
orbit5
Wow, I can’t believe he supported the burning of the flag. For that, he will burn in hell.
Stached1
@Stache: Goodwin’s law; but it does not surprise me or anyone else here that you are equating gay/LGBT rights or Republican politicians with the Holocaust, Hitler, Nazis, and Jews when there is no comparison and only professional victim types who do not understand history do this.
Stache
@Goforit: Yeah, deranged is the only thing I can think of too. I’ve never had a stalker follow me like this Stache1/Jac*b23 freak. Going back to ignore now though.
Archie
Ginsberg and Scalia were BFF’s. It’s funny weird when this happens in the DC culture.
Sweetie Pie
I hope he’s bottoming for a gay, well-hung incubus in hell
Buddy Bear
According to Salon, Scalia was a Jeb guy. http://www.salon.com/2016/02/15/scalia_told_me_a_secret_about_george_w_bush/
1EqualityUSA
glucklich, my comments on bern were (poof) evaporating. Perhaps “flaccid” triggered a fear response? This site is buggy lately.
Leonard Woodrow
@Brian: Bull’s eye! Genetically all men fall on a scale ranging from purely homosexual to completely heterosexual.
Goforit
@Stache: Hey Stache: In all seriousness, you should check in to getting some sort of restraining order against Stache1. In my opinion, he obviously is a deranged stalker and quite possibly dangerous. He will probably try to start something with me now. Ignoring him/her is most likely the best way forward.
cleverusername
Yawn on the pizza argument. Pull the life support; that hasn’t been lively since Scalia’s youth. And anyway it’s moot because Detroit style is better than Chicago for pizza and New Haven is better than New York for pizza. And there’s probably somewhere better than all those places for pizza. We’re in America for Christsake. There has to be at least 10 billion pizza places. Let’s put the poor dog down.
stanhope
Ding dong the witch is dead the wicked witch the witch is dead. I wonder if they found him in those pink frilly panties from the Victoria Secret’s big girl’s collection that he favored.
stanhope
@Sweetie Pie: who would want that fat ugly ass?
Will Glitzern
Another good thing: he just saved us from having to put up with him anymore.
JessPH
I’m not sorry and sad that he died. I am sorry and sad for all the gay people who committed suicide because of the culture of homophobia he helped perpetuate.
1EqualityUSA
Scalia, I lost confidence in our system because of this bigot. I wish he had taken his leave before gutting the Voting Rights Act, pushing Citizens United, and allowing Hobby-Lobby. If the Republicans block Obama’s appointee, it will fire up the Democrats to get off of their asses and vote. What’s disturbing is, at work, I had told 7 people that Scalia had died and they didn’t know who he was! Only one person knew he was a Supreme Court Justice, but couldn’t articulate how it was significant. We have to vote this year.
CWM85
May his bigoted, cold heart finally be at peace. This man had a lot of hatred and anger, like many homophobes. I disagree with number 5 that he may right decisions. None of his votes were right. So I hope he had a chance to repent for his hate before he passed. Because if there is a heaven, he won’t be going.
TampaBayTed
I sincerely hope that when he reaches the Pearly Gates (if that’s where he’s headed) that he’s greeted by a chorus line of drag queens.
GayEGO
@Brian: I believe they call that homophobia and because Scalia was a Catholic, who knows, maybe he was molested by a Catholic Priest! :>)
Desert Boy
The Devil called Scalia home.
GayEGO
@TampaBayTed: I will get my lavender chiffon gown ready! :>)
SteveDenver
I am overjoyed Scalia is no longer on the Supreme Court.
gbm36nyc
ding dong the bitch is dead!
onthemark
It’s a provocative headline, but I like seeing the three words “Miss Antonin Scalia.”
Not to be confused with Miss America, or Miss Queens (his childhood borough).
Maybe Miss Anthropic.
Jay A. Scaramazzo
captainburrito
His dissents on gay issue rulings will be missed. Those were like roadmaps for how gay rights should proceed via the judiciary, peppered with his anger for entertainment.
1EqualityUSA
If I never saw this ugly man’s face again, as long as I live, it will be too soon.