Top 10 RAGE QUOTES From Scalia’s Dissent On DOMA [View all]

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Justice Antonin Scalia wrote a flaming dissent against the Supreme Court’s 5-4 ruling Wednesday invalidating the core of the Defense of Marriage Act, the law that prohibits married same-sex couples from receiving federal benefits. Underlying Scalia’s pushback was anger at the majority’s decision to even involve itself in the “abstract questions” of this case and his view that states should be permitted to determine whether or not gay conduct is moral and legislate on that basis.


Here are the top 10 quotes from the staunchly conservative jurist — a mix of rage-filled metaphors and legal punches.




1) ‘Diseased Root’

“We have no power to decide this case,” Scalia wrote. “And even if we did, we have no power under the Constitution to invalidate this democratically adopted legislation. The Court’s errors on both points spring forth from the same diseased root: an exalted conception of the role of this institution in America.”

“The Court is eager — hungry — to tell everyone its view of the legal question at the heart of this case.”



2) ‘Jaw-Dropping,’ ‘Black-Robed Supremacy’

“That is jaw-dropping. It is an assertion of judicial supremacy over the people’s Representatives in Congress and the Executive,” he wrote, adding that the framers of the Constitution created a judicial branch with limited power in order to “guard their right to self-rule against the black-robed supremacy that today’s majority finds so attractive.”



3) ‘No Justification’ For Obama Administration

Chiding the Obama administration for refusing to defend DOMA in court, Scalia scoffed, “There is no justification for the Justice Department’s abandoning the law in the present case. The majority opinion makes a point of scolding the President for his ‘failure to defend the constitutionality of an Act of Congress based on a constitutional theory not yet established in judicial decisions … But the rebuke is tongue-in-cheek, for the majority gladly gives the President what he wants.”



4) ‘Legalistic Argle-Bargle’

Referring to the issue of standing, Scalia wrote, “I find it wryly amusing that the majority seeks to dismiss the requirement of party-adverseness as nothing more than a ‘prudential’ aspect of the sole Article III requirement of standing.”

“As I have said, the real rationale of today’s opinion, whatever disappearing trail of its legalistic argle-bargle one chooses to follow, is that DOMA is motivated by ‘bare … desire to harm’ couples in same-sex marriages.”



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