Per FOX Scalia is reading his dissent aloud (unusual) and is quite steamed .
His dissent is withering, and is excellent reading—worth seeking the pdf of the decision.
But the libs won again.
“When in the course of human events.....” is coming soon for America.
From Scalia's wonderful dissent:
[Antonin Scalia's dissent] ". . . . But the majority says that the supporters of this Act acted with malicewith the purpose (ante, at 25) to disparage and to injure same-sex couples. It says that the motivation for DOMA was to demean, ibid.; to impose inequality, ante, at 22; to impose . . . a stigma, ante, at 21; to deny people equal dignity, ibid.; to brand gay people as unworthy, ante, at 23; and to humiliat[e] their children, ibid. (emphasis added).
"I am sure these accusations are quite untrue. To be sure (as the majority points out), the legislation is called the Defense of Marriage Act. But to defend traditional marriage is not to condemn, demean, or humiliate those who would prefer other arrangements, any more than to defend the Constitution of the United States is to con- demn, demean, or humiliate other constitutions. To hurl such accusations so casually demeans this institution. In the majoritys judgment, any resistance to its holding is beyond the pale of reasoned disagreement. To question its high-handed invalidation of a presumptively valid statute is to act (the majority is sure) with the purpose to disparage, injure, degrade, demean, and humiliate our fellow human beings, our fellow citizens, who are homosexual. All that, simply for supporting an Act that did no more than codify an aspect of marriage that had been unquestioned in our society for most of its existence indeed, had been unquestioned in virtually all societies for virtually all of human history. It is one thing for a society to elect change; it is another for a court of law to impose change by adjudging those who oppose it hostes humani generis, enemies of the human race.
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"The penultimate sentence of the majoritys opinion is a naked declaration that [t]his opinion and its holding are confined to those couples joined in same-sex marriages made lawful by the State. Ante, at 26, 25. I have heard such bald, unreasoned disclaimer[s] before. Lawrence, 539 U. S., at 604. When the Court declared a constitutional right to homosexual sodomy, we were assured that the case had nothing, nothing at all to do with whether the government must give formal recognition to any relationship that homosexual persons seek to enter. Id., at 578. Now we are told that DOMA is invalid because it demeans the couple, whose moral and sexual choices the Constitution protects, ante, at 23with an accompanying citation of Lawrence. It takes real cheek for todays majority to assure us, as it is going out the door, that a constitutional requirement to give formal recognition to same-sex marriage is not at issue herewhen what has preceded that assurance is a lecture on how superior the majoritys moral judgment in favor of same-sex marriage is to the Congresss hateful moral judgment against it. I promise you this: The only thing that will confine the Courts holding is its sense of what it can get away with. . . .
"By formally declaring anyone opposed to same-sex marriage an enemy of human decency, the majority arms well every challenger to a state law restricting marriage to its traditional definition. Henceforth those challengers will lead with this Courts declaration that there is no legitimate purpose served by such a law, and will claim that the traditional definition has the purpose and effect to disparage and to injure the personhood and dignity of same-sex couples, see ante, at 25, 26. The majoritys limiting assurance will be meaningless in the face of lan- guage like that, as the majority well knows. That is why the language is there. The result will be a judicial distortion of our societys debate over marriagea debate that can seem in need of our clumsy help only to a member of this institution.
"In the majoritys telling, this story is black-and-white: Hate your neighbor or come along with us. The truth is more complicated. It is hard to admit that ones political opponents are not monsters, especially in a struggle like this one, and the challenge in the end proves more than todays Court can handle. Too bad. A reminder that disagreement over something so fundamental as marriage can still be politically legitimate would have been a fit task for what in earlier times was called the judicial temperament. We might have covered ourselves with honor today, by promising all sides of this debate that it was theirs to settle and that we would respect their resolution. We might have let the People decide.
"But that the majority will not do. Some will rejoice in todays decision, and some will despair at it; that is the nature of a controversy that matters so much to so many. But the Court has cheated both sides, robbing the winners of an honest victory, and the losers of the peace that comes from a fair defeat. We owed both of them better. I dissent."