For Scalia, replacing rigorous legal analysis with dumb jokes and angry tirades is nothing new. For years, he has been writing dissents that sound like something from the POLITCO comments section, or at best a Glenn Beck book. Take his dissent to the Supreme Court’s 2003 decision in Lawrence v. Texas holding that laws criminalizing same sex intercourse are unconstitutional. Scalia’s response to a detailed majority opinion tracing the history of the rights of gay persons was a screed that read more like your drunk uncle’s Thanksgiving rant than cogent legal analysis. Scalia bemoaned a decision that was “the product of a law-profession culture, that has largely signed on to the so-called homosexual agenda.” He goes on to hit virtually every tired homophobic talking point, from fearmongering over “ teachers in their children’s schools” to “let me be clear that I have nothing against homosexuals.” This is by-the-numbers conservative punditry that was played out even twelve years ago.
Scalia dipped back into his Lawrence playbook in his dissent to today’s landmark gay marriage ruling, right down to the obligatory “I’ve got nothing against the gays but…” line “he substance of today’s decree is not of immense personal importance to me.” He goes on to complain at length about the death of democracy, culminating with an attack on the makeup of the Court: “Four of the nine are natives of New York City. Eight of them grew up in east- and west-coast States. Only one hails from the vast expanse in-between. Not a single Southwesterner or even, to tell the truth, a genuine Westerner (California does not count).” Attacking the Court for performing the very act of deciding the case before it is a well-worn Scalia trope, and no different from any other yahoo who starts shouting about “judicial activism” any time there is a decision he doesn’t agree with. His criticism of the individual justices was barely a step away from including the words “Hollyweird” and “Nancy Pelosi’s Democrat Party.”....
The truth is something closer to this: Scalia is a crank, and not a particularly original one. If his dissents are fascinating, it’s only because there is something curious and sad about a person who holds such a powerful position gleefully writing such garbage. It’s like hate-watching Sean Hannity, only with the added thrill of realizing that the speaker actually has some power over your life.
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