I’m an Idiot

I’m not being self-deprecating; Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia told me I’m an idiot.

People who believe the Constitution would break if it didn't change with society are "idiots," U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia says.

In a speech Monday sponsored by the conservative Federalist Society, Scalia defended his long-held belief in sticking to the plain text of the Constitution "as it was originally written and intended."

… Scalia criticized those who believe in what he called the "living Constitution."

"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 said. "The Constitution is not a living organism, it is a legal document. It says something and doesn't say other things."

Like, for example, how it says that black people constitute not a whole person, but three-fifths of a person. Or it did, anyway, until an amendment was made, superceding that despicable sentiment.

"They 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.

Here’s where Scalia and the rest of the “originalists” get it wrong: The issue is not that the Constitution will break if it does not change with society; it’s that society will break if the Constitution does not change. We had a civil war in this country over that very principle. We cannot stop society from changing; no rule, no law, no legal document no matter how firm can stop the inevitable progression of society. All we can do is make decisions about who and what we will accommodate within the law; choosing to restrict rights on the basis of race, or gender, or sexuality, will not temper the desire of the repressed to be equal, but instead force strain at society’s margins, until it breaks.

There must be a reason beyond distaste, aesthetic displeasure, tradition, or “because my god says so” for denying equality, opportunity, and personal freedom. In the void of rational reason, we find no compelling necessity to continue to deny to some the rights that we extend to others.

I see no reason to imbue the government with the decision about what a woman should do with her body—or what a man should do with his, for that matter. I see no reason that someone who loves a person of the same sex, by fate or by choice, should be prohibited from enjoying the same rights as I have. I see no reason that the Constitution should be used as a vice to control the expanding vibrancy of our society. If that makes me an idiot, then an idiot I shall be.