Scalia's rubric for this is pretty obvious.
If the topic in question is about greater rights for ethnic, sexual, or religious minorities he will rule against it.
If the topic in question is about restricting rights for ethnic, sexual, or religious minorities he will rule for it.
If the topic in question is about greater rights for ethnic, sexual, or religious majorities he will rule for it.
This may sound overly simplistic, but it holds up remarkably well when looking at his judicial record. He's a culture warrior.
Scalia's rubric for this is pretty obvious.
If the topic in question is about greater rights for ethnic, sexual, or religious minorities he will rule against it.
If the topic in question is about restricting rights for ethnic, sexual, or religious minorities he will rule for it.
If the topic in question is about greater rights for ethnic, sexual, or religious majorities he will rule for it.
This may sound overly simplistic, but it holds up remarkably well when looking at his judicial record. He's a culture warrior.
Ah, there it is. You can always count on trashman to shift into full on loony lefty.
First you should probably at least attempt to come close to spelling my name correctly. Second, I'm not wrong. Scalia is a horrendous Supreme Court Justice. He's absolutely incompetent and doesn't even begin to understand the Constitution. In addition to that he's a genuinely bad person. Which is made so much worse by the amount of power he wields being on the USSC. So yes, I will be fucking happy when this blight upon our court system and blight upon this nation is gone for good.
The government tells people what to believe all the time. That's what a hate crime law is, and the left vociferously defends that practice. Beat someone up because you're a jerk it's a crime, beat someone up because you don't like their color it's a doubleplus ungood crime.
Have you seen evidence of the Devil lately?
You know, it is curious. In the Gospels, the Devil is doing all sorts of things. He’s making pigs run off cliffs, he’s possessing people and whatnot. And that doesn’t happen very much anymore.
No.
It’s because he’s smart.
So what’s he doing now?
What he’s doing now is getting people not to believe in him or in God. He’s much more successful that way.
That has really painful implications for atheists. Are you sure that’s the *Devil’s work?
I didn’t say atheists are the Devil’s work.
Well, you’re saying the Devil is *persuading people to not believe in God. Couldn’t there be other reasons to not believe?
Well, there certainly can be other reasons. But it certainly favors the Devil’s desires. I mean, c’mon, that’s the explanation for why there’s not demonic possession all over the place. That always puzzled me. What happened to the Devil, you know? He used to be all over the place. He used to be all over the New Testament.
Right.
What happened to him?
He just got wilier.
He got wilier.
Yeh, skinheads on a rampage is exactly the same thing as a bar fight.
In some right wing universe, I'm sure.
Hate-Um Libruhls, anyway, right?
Aren't you old? I can take solace in the fact that you'll die long before I do.
And what's with that "Hate-um" crap? Sounds like some kind of anti-Native American slur, you old closeted racist twat.
Go fly into a spittle filled rage elsewhere, nutjob.
It seems ButtheadFett has finally replaced his monitor with a mirror.
Does anyone have the text of Scalia's speech? I don't mean selected highlights.
Oh good, more absurdly terrible sensationalized reporting. Here are a few more quotes from his speech:
"No principle of democracy is more fundamental than what has become known as the separation of church and state."
“It would be wrong to think, however, that the separation of church and state must mean that the political views of men and women must not be informed by their religious beliefs."
I haven't been able to find a full transcript, but the gist of it seems to be no different than anything he's said for the past 30 years: people are free to practice whatever religion they wish (or none at all) without government interference, but it's acceptable for the government to recognize religion through things like Christmas tree displays, prayers before legislative sessions, voluntary school prayer, statues of religious figures, etc. I rarely agree with his religious rulings and I suspect that he might feel differently if the dominant religion were one other than his own, but his beliefs really aren't that outrageous or dangerous.
From what I can tell, the "favor religion over non-religion" part just meant that he believes it's appropriate for government employees to talk about religion even while serving in an official capacity. He contrasted this to countries that enforce secularism by banning government officials from referring to their religious beliefs.
But I haven't read the whole speech, so maybe it really was part of his master plan to send atheists to death camps.
The opinion that 'Freedom of Religion' =/= 'Freedom from Religion' is hardly new or shocking. I smell faux outrage.
Fern
Most intelligent post in this thread:
Anyone should be wary when someone tells you what somebody else said. We should be looking at that person's own word's instead of someone's interpretation. Scalia speaks English, translator not needed.
This ^ seems far more accurate than the article in the OP.
The opinion that 'Freedom of Religion' =/= 'Freedom from Religion' is hardly new or shocking. I smell faux outrage.
Fern
He's all for freedom of religion so long as you're a Christian. If you're a Native American who uses peyote as part of your religious rituals? Take a hike, hippie.
Does this defense of religious practices in violation of existing law extend to the Branch Davidians?
Does this defense of religious practices in violation of existing law extend to the Branch Davidians?
Depends on what religious practices! I'm also not terribly familiar with all the details of the Waco siege, but from my limited understanding the federal government acted really badly there.
Clearly if going around murdering people is part of my religious practice that's not going to be ok. (not saying anything about the Branch Davidians) It's all about compelling interests for the government.
I'm completely unsurprised that Scalia thought it was totally ok for the government to suppress the religious expression of minority religions but comes down consistently on promoting the religious expression of Christians.
It did until they killed 4 federal agents.
Which law are you talking about? The 1965 federal rule allowing peyote use or the Oregon one banning it?
If the government hadn't been interfering with their religious practices to own automatic weapons and take underage brides, those agents wouldn't have been killed.
And there is a vast amount of federal law prohibiting the use of various mind altering substances. I guess those take precedent.
Says you. Others believe there are good reasons not to allow drug use, and therefore the government is obligated to prohibit native Americans from using drugs as a part of their religious ceremonies.Do you know why we don't allow under age brides? If you do then you also understand why the government was legally obligated to intervene.