[Update and Wednesday morning bump]
Gay Patriot notes that Congressman Frank is a serial offender in smearing those with whom he disagrees, including the “R” word:
Last fall, he accused conservatives of racism for linking the financial meltdown to the Community Reinvestment Act and the mismanagement of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
When, on the campaign trail, then-Republican presidential nominee John McCain made an issue of the Massachusetts Democrat’s proposals to raise taxes, increase domestic spending and gut the defense budget,* Barney called the attack on his statements, “an appeal to prejudice.”
Smart as Barney is, he has shown little capacity to understand conservative ideas, smearing his ideological adversaries rather than countering their arguments. Is this the kind of man we want as the “most prominent openly gay politician in America”?
I wouldn’t think so, but you’ve got him.
[Update mid morning]
Ann Althouse says that Barney Frank can’t read:
That’s plain old deference to the democratic process and a resistance to creative interpretation of constitutional text. There is nothing — absolutely nothing — to support the proposition that Scalia thinks it’s a good idea to lock up gay people. It’s the usual notion that judges shouldn’t be basing their decisions on whether they think a statute is a good idea or not. It’s the same point made by Justice Thomas (who, Frank says, is not a homophobe).
As her first commenter says, Barney Frank should be as big an embarrassment to the gay community as David Duke was to the white community.
[Here’s yesterday’s post.]
My disgust at Congressman Frank knows no bounds, and it’s not because I’m a “homophobe.” It’s because he’s an arrogant power-hungry corrupt demagogue. In his vile ad hominem attack on Justice Scalia, calling him a homophobe, he attempts to delegitimize his arguments, just as he and others attempt to shut down other debates by calling those who disagree with them “racists,” or “haters” (as one foolish commenter did here the other day).
Part of the mendacity of their argument, of course, is to blur the distinction between process and result. My understanding of Justice Scalia’s position is not that he is personally opposed to gay marriage (though he may well be, perhaps is likely to be). It is that there is no intrinsic right to it in the Constitution, and if proponents want there to be, they have to amend the Constitution. What he personally thinks about it, or whether or not he is truly homophobic (I doubt that, at least by any sane definition of that word, as opposed to “being opposed to changing the long-understood definition of marriage”) is completely irrelevant, and orthogonal to the Constitutional validity of his position.
It is similar to Roe, in which many (perhaps even most) believe that if you favor Roe you favor abortion on demand and if you oppose it, you oppose that. But as I’ve noted in the past, one can be pro-choice, or indifferent to it as a matter of law (which is pretty much my position) and still think Roe a Constitutional atrocity, because it granted a right not to be found there, other than in emanations of shadows of penumbras. Similarly, one could (in theory) be morally opposed to abortion, but think Roe rightly decided (though there are very few actual people who would take such a position).
As Ed Whelan notes, Scalia’s position was not about whether or not he likes the Defense of Marriage Act, but whether or not it is Constitutional. And if he is a homophobe, he’s in pretty good company:
The Defense of Marriage Act was approved by overwhelming majorities in each House of Congress (85-14 in the Senate, 342-67 in the House) in 1996 and signed into law by President Clinton. Senators in favor of DOMA included Biden, Bradley, Daschle, Kohl, Leahy, Levin, Lieberman, Mikulski, Murray, Reid, Sarbanes, and Wellstone. Millions and millions of voters in state after state have acted to preserve traditional marriage. Does Frank regard all these Americans as “homophobes”?
Scalia’s position is based on his view of originalism, not on his view of gay marriage, just as are his positions on numerous other issues for which fascists like Barney Frank revile him. My reading of him is that he, more than probably any other sitting member of the court, pretty thoroughly divorces his views of the issues from his assessment of their Constitutionality, which is what a justice is supposed to do. Which of course is exactly why the Franks of the world slander him:
Frank wants liberal activist justices who will indulge his and the Left’s own policy preferences on homosexual matters (and so much more). That’s his real beef with Scalia, and he’s masquerading it under the “homophobe” label.
I’ll leave to others whether Frank’s name-calling is a tactic designed to distract attention from his role in causing the ongoing financial crisis.
I wouldn’t argue with the proposition.
[Afternoon update]
Heh. Scalia urges patience with Barney Frank’s heterophobia.
I have been told in no uncertain terms by a (former?) friend of mine of the gay persuasion that to disagree with him in the smallest iota is to be a bigot
I guess I am a bigot.
Scalia seems to think that homosexuality is something you might catch from your gay kindergarten teacher (see his oral argument comments for Lawrence v. Texas). That might be a personal view, but even with Scalia the personal bleeds into the legal (in that case it gave him a justification for a state interest in criminalizing gay sex). His judicial philosophy only acknowledges a liberty interest in cases of a “deeply rooted tradition” — and he’s the one who decides what is and isn’t tradition. Frank is right to think that Scalia is no friend to him or the cause of gay equality.
Frank is right to think that Scalia is no friend to him or the cause of gay equality.
Whether true or not, it doesn’t justify his ad hominem attack on Scalia’s integrity, any more than calling someone who opposes affirmative action (i.e., who supports equality under the law) a “racist.”
Scalia thinks that gay kindergarten teachers spread homosexuality to unsuspecting innocent children — is there a more textbook example of homophobia?
If some of those children are bisexual (and no doubt some of them are), then in a sense they would be, since they could, and likely would influence them to later indulge in their homosexual nature rather than their heterosexual one.
And even if he is a “homophobe,” it remains an odious debating tactic, because it allows him to sidestep the constitutional issues. But that’s Barney Frank.
Jim spouts: Scalia thinks that gay kindergarten teachers spread homosexuality to unsuspecting innocent children — is there a more textbook example of homophobia?
Who cares? The issu to be debated is not whether or not Scalia is homophobic.
The passage above says: It is that there is no intrinsic right to it in the Constitution, and if proponents want there to be, they have to amend the Constitution.
Does same sex marriage exist within the Constitution? No. To get it, you need to amend the Constitution. Pretty cut and dried.
Um, Frank wasn’t debating anyone, he was telling a magazine why he didn’t want the current court to review DOMA (“because that homophobe Antonin Scalia has too many votes on this current court”). Frank isn’t arguing the constitutionality of DOMA, he’s giving an assessment of Scalia’s prejudices, and the current vote count on the court.
This is only news because it’s unusual for top-level politicians/judges to call each other names on the record. That’s the tradition that let us go decades with lots of racists in Congress and on the court, without their peers being so rude as to call them racists. I think it would have been okay for Thurgood Marshall to describe James Eastland as a racist, and I’m not bothered by Frank’s analogous breach of decorum.
Mac: Heterosexual marriage does not exist in the Constitution, so by your logic there’s no different-sex marriage either.
Scalia thinks that gay kindergarten teachers spread homosexuality to unsuspecting innocent children — is there a more textbook example of homophobia?
Sure. Suggesting that whether or not gay kindergarten teachers spread homosexuality et cetera, they should be put to death would qualify, huh?
But in any event the assertion, that gay teachers spread homosexuality, is on its face ethically and emotionally neutral. Whether it smears gay teachers depends a lot on what you think about “spreading” homosexuality. For example, suppose we made a very similar statement, like this:
Male kindergarten teachers, particularly happily married ones, inculcate ideals of responsible adult male sexual behaviour to children in their classroom
Have we smeared married male teachers, Jim? Probably, not, huh? Because the assumption is that what’s being “spread” here is good, fertilizer not poison.
In other words, it’s not Scalia’s statement that’s a smear — it’s yours, because your statement, that to suggest that homosexual teachers influence children is a hateful statement, is the one that contains the hidden assumption that whatever the homosexual teachers spread is wrong and bad, and will horrify parents. Whether or not that reflects your own actual secret thought, I leave to you and your conscience.
However, I do note that, had you seen nothing wrong with homosexual teachers encouraging homosexuality (just one more lifestyle choice!), your reaction to the statement would very likely have been So? What’s wrong with that? instead of fearfully calling it hateful.
Or, on the other hand, if you thought that it was very unlikely that homosexual teachers would “spread” homosexuality at all, you might have reacted by saying That’s a silly and wrong statement, and no sensible person would believe it. That Scalia, he’s an idiot. Again, no fearful “hate speech” labeling.
Finally, you might assert that Scalia is factually wrong, but that the world is filled with ignorant redneck parents who think he is right, hate the idea of their little one’s being turned gay by their kindergarten experience — I’m working at suppressing laughing here — and that therefore Scalia is encouraging hatefulness, kind of in the way (just to pick a random example) someone might demonize bankers in order to advance his own political agenda. Those capitalists, you can’t trust ’em, look at what they might DO with their profits!
In that case, of course, you betray a wide contempt for the judgment and maturity of your fellow men. Fair enough — I don’t necessarily feel differently — but in that case it’s hard to see why they should respect your opinion, since you’re just an arrogant elitist telling them what’s good for them.
Heterosexual marriage does not exist in the Constitution, so by your logic there’s no different-sex marriage either.
Oy, Jim, the logic engine is just not firing on all cylinders today. Need some coffee?
The Constitution does not specify nearly all of that which is true about your society, because those things are decided by majority decisions. The Constitution enters into the gay marriage debate only because gay marriage is strongly opposed by the majority (hence the passage of the DOMA by lopsided votes, the success of every single anti-gay-marriage state constitutional amendment, et cetera).
The Constitution’s main role, aside from setting up the framework of government is to limit the power of the majority over individuals. To say that this and such is forbidden to the majority. In this case, the Constitution is being invoked by proponents of expanding “marriage” to include “stable homosexual sex partnership” because they assert the Constitution forbids the majority from declining to make that expansion.
It is certainly the case that if, in the future, everyone turns gay and they want to restrict “marriage” to “same sex sex partnership,” there’s nothing in the Constitution to prevent it.
Carl: the context of Scalia’s comment about teachers was consideration of whether there was a state interest in criminalizing homosexual conduct, and he was offering the teachers-with-cooties scenario as an example. The notion that homosexuality is bad, and that homosexuals will spread their badness to vulnerable children, adds up to fear of homosexuals.
As for the Constitution, see Mac’s comment. He argues that gay marriage requires a constitutional amendment because it isn’t mentioned in the original document. I was just pointing out that by his logic different-sex marriage requires an amendment as well.
Jim says: Mac: Heterosexual marriage does not exist in the Constitution, so by your logic there’s no different-sex marriage either.
You know, my 5 year old uses the same logic to argue that you do. Heterosexual marriage was the norm when it was written, so in essence can be inferred. And, as Carl pointed out, the point of the Constitution besides setting up the government framework is to limit the power of a majority over the individual, in essence setting a limit on democracy’s mob rule.
Jim says: The notion that homosexuality is bad, and that homosexuals will spread their badness to vulnerable children, adds up to fear of homosexuals.
The notion that religion is bad, and that religious people will spread their ideas to vulnerable children, adds up to fear of religion.
The notion that Democrats are bad, and that Democrats will spread their ideas and indoctrinate vulnerable children, adds up to the truth.
> Mac: Heterosexual marriage does not exist in the Constitution, so by your logic there’s no different-sex marriage either.
Actually, you’re both getting it wrong.
There’s no “right to marry” for anyone in the US Constitution. Therefore a law against different sex marriage would be constitutional, as would a law against second marriages, marriages by guys named Jim, right handed people, and so on.
It happens that the US Congress didn’t pass a law against different sex marriage. They passed one restricting same-sex marriage and the president signed it. That’s how we get laws in this country.
They get to do that. They don’t have to do it, and if they didn’t, there wouldn’t be any federal restrictions on same sex marriage.
But, they did. And, they didn’t pass a law restricting different sex marriage. They get to make such distinctions.
Elections have consequences.
To be fair, the consequences would have been the same regardless of which major party’s nominee was elected, since both have been against SSM since the issue arose.
That’s a consequence of another thing entirely, which was referenced above by Carl — that a majority of the people, including a sizable majority of those voting in such blue states as California and Oregon, also oppose SSM.
Nor did the push to overrule those majorities by a judicial end-run help SSM proponents in peeling away voters to support SSM when the issue did, inevitably, come to ballots in the various states. Majorities in a republic tend to get cranky when their authority is defied.
Suppose Roe v. Wade had been limited to the particulars of the Texas case that led to the ruling, rather than overturning every single existing state law on abortion. Does anyone here think abortion as a political issue would still be good for millions of fundraising dollars on both sides in every election cycle?
>> Elections have consequences.
> To be fair, the consequences would have been the same regardless of which major party’s nominee was elected, since both have been against SSM since the issue arose.
I was referring to congressional elections, not just presidential ones.
We elected a congress which passed DOMA.
We could have elected one that didn’t, but we didn’t. We also didn’t elect one that restricted different-sex marriages or marriages involving red-heads.
Point taken about congressional elections, but I’m still not so sure about the “could have” in this case either.
> Point taken about congressional elections, but I’m still not so sure about the “could have” in this case either.
Unless you’re claiming that there was no other vote possible, it is the case.
Yes, it’s unlikely that candidates who would have voted that way would have been elected, but that’s the decision that we’ve made and it’s a decision that we’re free to change.
The constitution takes some things off the table. However, it leaves a wide range of options. Elections are how we decide between them.