Anti-gay US Supreme Court justice Antonin Scalia slipped into the country yesterday, making a low-key appearance at Auckland University. Scalia was one of three dissenting justices in a landmark ruling last year which struck down the remaining anti-sodomy statutes in 13 US states. While other judges said the sodomy laws were an “unconstitutional invasion of privacy”, Scalia said the court “has largely signed on to the so-called homosexual agenda” and sodomy was not a “fundamental right”. In keeping with other voices who have spouted antigay rhetoric, Scalia added later that he had “nothing against homosexuals”. His impartiality on the bench was later called into question when it was revealed he had addressed an antigay lobby group, the Urban Family Council, while the Supreme Court was deliberating on the anti-sodomy laws. In keeping with other antigay voices with inconsistent morality, Scalia earlier this month surprised a Harvard University audience by advocating in favour of orgies: “I even take the position that sexual orgies eliminate social tensions and ought to be encouraged,” he said. GayNZ.com attempted to get in touch with Scalia for an interview but was informed he would be too busy whilst in New Zealand. We wanted to ask him why, if he indeed had “nothing against homosexuals”, that he wanted to continue enforcing a law that saw consenting gay adults being thrown in jail and registered as sex offenders just for having sex in the privacy of their own homes, as well as asking for his thoughts on separation of church and state.
Credit: GayNZ.com News Staff
First published: Friday, 22nd October 2004 - 12:00pm