Antonin Scalia
Antonin Scalia
Antonin Gregory Scalia was an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1986 until his death in 2016. Appointed to the Court by President Ronald Reagan in 1986, Scalia was described as the intellectual anchor for the originalist and textualist position in the Court's conservative wing...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionPolitician
Date of Birth11 March 1936
CityTrenton, NJ
CountryUnited States of America
melting constitution illusion
It is difficult to maintain the illusion that we are interpreting a Constitution, rather than inventing one.
motivational mean interpretation
What is a moderate interpretation of the text? Halfway between what it really means and what you'd like it to mean?
christian scary melting
Devout Christians are destined to be regarded as fools in modern society. We are fools for Christ's sake. We must pray for courage to endure the scorn of the sophisticated world.
feelings moral murder
If we cannot have moral feelings against homosexuality, can we have it against murder? Can we have it against other things?
mean rights liberty
A Bill of Rights that means what the majority wants it to mean is worthless.
country design melting
Day by day, case by case, the Supreme Court is busy designing a Constitution for a country I do not recognize.
sex issues doe
Certainly the Constitution does not require discrimination on the basis of sex. The only issue is whether it prohibits it. It doesn't.
philosophy order law
The Court's decision reflects the philosophy that judges should endure whatever interpretive distortions it takes in order to correct a supposed flaw in the statutory machinery. That philosophy ignores the American people's decision to give Congress '[a]ll legislative Powers' enumerated in the Constitution. They made Congress, not this Court, responsible for both making laws and mending them.
court-judges judging faithful
If you're going to be a good and faithful judge, you have to resign yourself to the fact that you're not always going to like the conclusions you reach. If you like them all the time, you're probably doing something wrong.
eye race government
In the eyes of government we are just one race here. It is American.
believe scary matter
One can be sophisticated and believe in God. Reason and intellect are not to be laid aside where matters of religion are concerned.
writing suggestions opinion
Having had the good fortune to serve beside her on both courts, I can attest that her opinions are always thoroughly considered, always carefully crafted and almost always correct (which is to say we sometimes disagree). That much is apparent for all to see. What only her colleagues know is that her suggestions improve the opinions the rest of us write, and that she is a source of collegiality and good judgment in all our work.
mean men views
More importantly, the Court forgets that ours is a government of laws and not of men. That means we are governed by the terms of our laws, not by the unenacted will of our lawmakers. 'If Congress enacted into law something different from what it intended, then it should amend the statute to conform to its intent.' In the meantime, this Court 'has no roving license ... to disregard clear language simply on the view that ... Congress 'must have intended' something broader.
religious atheist practice
With respect to public acknowledgment of religious belief, it is entirely clear from our nation's historical practices that the Establishment Clause permits this disregard of polytheists and believers in unconcerned deities, just as it permits the disregard of devout atheists.