Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia on
Monday defended comparing gay sex to murder.
Speaking at Princeton University to
promote his book, Reading Law: The Interpretation of Legal Texts,
Scalia was asked by a gay student about his previous controversial
writings on gay rights.
His form of argument, Scalia answered,
was “reduction to the absurd.”
“If we cannot have moral feelings
against homosexuality, can we have it against murder? Can we have it
against other things?” Scalia asked. He added that he was not
equating sodomy with murder but drawing parallels between laws which
ban both, the
AP reported.
Scalia's comments come as the high
court prepares to hear two cases on marriage rights for gay and
lesbian couples.
(Related: Supreme
Court to hear gay marriage-related Prop 8, DOMA cases.)
In October, Scalia, considered one of
the court's most conservative justices, suggested he would vote
against marriage equality.
Scalia told a few hundred people at the
American Enterprise Institute that he applies the words in the U.S.
Constitution as they were understood by its authors.
Using his “textualist” method makes
ruling on some of today's hot button issues easy, he said.
“The death penalty? Give me a break.
It's easy. Abortion? Absolutely easy. Nobody ever thought the
Constitution prevented restrictions on abortion. Homosexual sodomy?
Come on. For 200 years, it was a crime in every state,” said
Scalia, who was appointed to the court by President Ronald Reagan in
1986.