Supreme Court Justice Anthony Scalia just leveled his most scathing remarks to date on the Court for its decision in Obergefell v. Hodges earlier this summer. In a speech at Rhodes College, Scalia claimed the court is getting further away from interpreting the Constitution and closer to imposing its own desires as law:
“Saying that the Constitution requires practice, which is contrary to the religious beliefs of many of our citizens,” Scalia said – “I don’t know how you can get more extreme than that.”
Scalia described the Obergefell v. Hodges decision as the “furthest imaginable extension of the Supreme Court doing whatever it wants.” He rhetorically asked, “Do you really want your judges to rewrite the Constitution?”
Scalia also noted that the Supreme Court is “terribly unrepresentative” of America and called out past justices for making decisions that are ultimately dictating moral behavior to the public:
“What is it that I learned at Harvard Law School that makes me peculiarly qualified to determine such profound moral and ethical questions as whether there should be a right to abortion, whether there should be same-sex marriage, whether there should be a right to suicide?” Scalia asked. “It has nothing to do with the law.”
This isn’t the first time Scalia has criticized judicial overreach. In his dissenting opinion in Obergefell, Scalia stated, “Today’s decree says that my Ruler, and the Ruler of 320 million Americans coast-to-coast, is a majority of the nine lawyers on the Supreme Court.”
Nick Arnold is a researcher for American Principles In Action.
