News

By Terry Vanderheyden

PONCE, Puerto Rico, February 15, 2006 (LifeSiteNews.com) – US Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia said that people who believe in a “living Constitution”– a belief that the Constitution should be interpreted differently to reflect societal trends – are “idiots.”

Speaking Monday in Puerto Rico at a Federalist Society gathering, Scalia condemned the belief that the Constitution must change to reflect societal norms. “That’s the argument of flexibility and it goes something like this: The Constitution is over 200 years old and societies change. It has to change with society, like a living organism, or it will become brittle and break.”

“But you would have to be an idiot to believe that,” Scalia added, according to an AP report. “The Constitution is not a living organism, it is a legal document. It says something and doesn’t say other things.”

Those who believe in a changing interpretation of the Constitution to suit their ideals “are not looking for legal flexibility, they are looking for rigidity, whether it’s the right to abortion or the right to homosexual activity, they want that right to be embedded from coast to coast and to be unchangeable,” he said.

The Federalist Society for Law and Public Policy Studies believes that “law schools and the legal profession are currently strongly dominated by a form of orthodox liberal ideology which advocates a centralized and uniform society,” according to their web site. “The Society seeks both to promote an awareness of these principles and to further their application through its activities. This entails reordering priorities within the legal system to place a premium on individual liberty, traditional values, and the rule of law. It also requires restoring the recognition of the importance of these norms among lawyers, judges, and law professors.”

Visit the Federalist Society web site:
https://www.fed-soc.org/