WASHINGTON, June 27, 2003 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia wrote a scathing dissent to the Lawrence v. Texas Supreme Court ruling handed down yesterday. The ruling which ruled unconstitutional Texas’ ban on sodomy, warns Scalia, “leaves on pretty shaky grounds state laws limiting marriage to opposite-sex couples.” In some of the strongest language coming from the bench, Justice Scalia said of the majority ruling, “what a massive disruption of the current social order”. He explained that, “State laws against bigamy, same-sex marriage, adult incest, prostitution, masturbation, adultery, fornication, bestiality, and obscenity are likewise sustainable only in light of Bowers’ validation of laws based on moral choices. Every single one of these laws is called into question by today’s decision; the Court makes no effort to cabin the scope of its decision to exclude them from its holding.” Scalia writes: “Today’s opinion dismantles the structure of constitutional law that has permitted a distinction to be made between heterosexual and homosexual unions, insofar as formal recognition in marriage is concerned.”

In the most telling section, Scalia asks, “If moral disapprobation of homosexual conduct is ‘no legitimate state interest’ for purposes of proscribing that conduct and if, as the Court coos (casting aside all pretense of neutrality), ‘[w]hen sexuality finds overt expression in intimate conduct with another person, the conduct can be but one element in a personal bond that is more enduring,’ what justification could there possibly be for denying the benefits of marriage to homosexual couples exercising ‘[t]he liberty protected by the Constitution,’?”

Answering himself, he says, “Surely not the encouragement of procreation, since the sterile and the elderly are allowed to marry. This case ‘does not involve’ the issue of homosexual marriage only if one entertains the belief that principle and logic have nothing to do with the decisions of this Court. Many will hope that, as the Court comfortingly assures us, this is so.” See Justice Scalia’s full dissent at: https://supct.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/02-102.ZD.html