COLLEGE STATION -- The citizenry, and not judges, should make decisions about issues such as abortion and gay rights that are not explicitly mentioned in the Constitution, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia told an audience at Texas A&M University on Thursday. "Do you want a right to abortion? Create it in the way most rights are created in a democratic society: Persuade your fellow citizens and enact a law," he said.
Scalia's conservative views -- which are evident in his words during oral arguments, his written opinions and his frequent public appearances -- make him one of President Bush's favorite justices and a frontrunner to eventually replace ailing Chief Justice William Rehnquist as the head of the nation's highest court.
Former President Bush introduced Scalia in an auditorium adjacent to his presidential library, and Scalia won over most of the approximately 900 students, faculty, university supporters and members of the public with a 30-minute speech about his jurisprudence, dubbed originalism.
Scalia said the Constitution is not a "living document" but one that should be strictly read for its original meaning.
"Originalists believe that the Constitution should be interpreted to mean exactly what it meant when it was adopted by the American people," said the Reagan appointee. "This is a very minority view these days."
Scalia, 69, said his sole like-minded fellow justice is Clarence Thomas. Thomas is also considered a contender for chief justice if Rehnquist, who is suffering from thyroid cancer, dies or retires.
Giving a version of his standard public speech, Scalia mocked most of his fellow justices and the majority of constitutional law scholars who believe that constant reinterpretations of the Constitution by the Supreme Court reflect "the progress of a maturing society."
"Societies only mature; they never rot," Scalia quipped, to the delight of the laughing audience.
Although there wasn't a hint of dissent in the room -- or outside it -- at A&M, Scalia has drawn protests at previous public appearances.
At the University of Michigan Law School last year, a handful of students briefly interrupted a speech by parading through the auditorium carrying signs denouncing his views on affirmative action and other subjects, the Detroit News reported.
In 2003, Scalia wrote a dissenting opinion in the landmark Grutter v. Bollinger case, in which the high court upheld by a 5-4 vote the use of race as a factor in admissions at the Michigan law school.
The court's majority opinion said a diverse student body provides an "educational benefit" and "cross-racial understanding." Those things could just as easily be learned in kindergarten, Scalia wrote, "for it is a lesson of life rather than law."
Scalia also dissented from the Supreme Court ruling in 2003 that struck down a Texas law banning homosexual sodomy.
Justice Anthony Kennedy, writing for the 6-3 majority, said Texas showed "no legitimate state interest which can justify its intrusion into the personal and private life of the individual."
Scalia later wrote that the majority opinion "is the produce of a Court . . . that has largely signed on to the so-called homosexual agenda."
During a question-and-answer period after Scalia's remarks at Texas A&M, one questioner identified himself as a member of the Young Conservatives of Texas, and the next as a member of the Texas A&M Young Republicans.
That led Scalia to ask: "Am I totally preaching to the choir?"
To that, many in the crowd laughed and applauded.
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Hang on, Justice Scalia, we don't CREATE a right to anything!! We have by virtue of being born God given unalienable rights in a constitutional REPUBLIC!!! If someone can vote to create a right, then someone else can vote to take it away which means we have no rights. That's the problem with a democratic form of government which you seem to be pushing here. Then you talk out of the other side of your mouth and say that the constitution is not a living document. You just made it so with your prior statement!!