Scalia and the Neo-Con Court

Logo network is reporting Scalia's remarks on homosexuality to a student group in Switzerland. He statess his standard for what the Constitution allows is this : what would the original writers of the Constitution have said?. Clearly in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century homosexuality would have been seen still as an abhoration. This is the very serious problem with Scalia. That he, as a literalist in his interpretation of the Constitution, believes there is no 'living document'. If we accept Scalia's outmoded ideas than the last 250 or so years have never happened - including reproductive rights, womens right to vote, the abolition of slavery; nearly any contemporary right to privacy issue or emmancipation issue you may hold dear and precious - and expect to continue to be your right in a free nation. The debate centers then around whether the Constitution is a static document interpretted only in the manner our forefathers, with all their eighteenth century ideals and prejudices intact, or whether it is indeed the 'living document' subscribed to by moderate and more liberal high court justices. (They are the reason our rights to privacy now exist). Will that precedence be enough in future? Not if Scalia and his neo-con partner judges remain on the bench for very long. The vote now swings their way. (Note the challenges already posed to the cornerstone of privacy rights, Roe vs. Wade) It is interesting to note that the manner in which Scalia interprets the Constitution is still guesswork - however much he may believe the forefathers would decide an issue in a certain manner he was not, nor can he ever be, with them to argue the point. Therefore it is still a theory, still an interpretation, still a 'guess' to what persons in another time and a different society than our own would say. But even if his guesses are close to the views of our founding fathers do YOU and I wish to live by the norms of a defunct society which in no way meets the then unconceived challenges of our time?

I previously posted an essay by a Professor Hyde on this site regarding aspects of this argument in regards to neoclassical paintings and their homoerotic subject matter. It is well worth sifting through again - becuase his theory revolves around this premis: is the Constitution a dead and static documentwith no ability to meet need in modern society or is it a living document which interprets the social change which the founding fathers could never have imagined? It's interesting to learn who wants it to be a static document and who does not....

Here is the URL: http://www.andromeda.rutgers.edu...e/ homo.htm#N_1_