Scalia’s Lawrence dissent followed speech before anti-gay group By ADRIAN BRUNE, Friday, March 19, 2004

Congressman Barney Frank accuses Supreme Court justice of ”very vigorous prejudices”

One month before writing a stinging dissent in the Lawrence vs. Texas Supreme Court decision, which overturned state sodomy laws, Justice Antonin Scalia delivered a keynote address to an anti-gay advocacy group in Philadelphia.

While going largely unnoticed last May, the appearance now has some experts questioning Scalia’s objectivity in the Lawrence case as well as in future gay civil rights lawsuits brought before the Supreme Court.

Scalia spoke at a $150 per plate dinner given by the Urban Family Council, a social conservative group that has filed a lawsuit challenging the legality of Philadelphia’s domestic partner benefits for city employees. The case is now pending in front of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, and could appear on the U.S. Supreme Court’s docket in the future, sources said. …

Congressman Barney Frank (D-Mass.) took issue with Scalia’s objectivity during a recent speech on the House floor, saying the justice’s actions only supported the biased views already written in most of his decisions.

”Questioning Justice Scalia’s impartiality is like questioning Saddam’s weapons of mass destruction,” he said in the speech. ”You cannot call into question that which does not exist. In fact, if you read Justice Scalia’s opinions, they are singularly devoid of impartiality.

”Here is a man of very vigorous prejudices, and he does not see any reason why he should not write them into various opinions.”