Letter: No justice from Scalia

That Antonin Scalia is no longer serving on the U.S. Supreme Court is a blessing. As history will reveal, this misguided, petty legal mind routinely demonstrated poor judgments steeped in narrowly constructed perceptions of law and cultish religious ideologies, poor judgments and legal decisions that have negatively affected the lives of million of Americans.

Despite his identification as a Catholic, Scalia was no principal or worthwhile follower of the faith, for he had no sociopolitical concern for the historically dispossessed, marginalized and oppressed. His legal-based understandings of race relations, immigration and people of color were ignorant, callous and archaically racist, demonstrating his “slower track” education and centuries-old retardation of knowledge and values. Regardless of one’s views on gay marriage and other gay-rights issues, Scalia’s attacks on gay rights were vicious and uncompromising — inappropriate for a consequential justice with vast amounts of power affecting the lives of all Americans, even those outside the bounds of heteronormativity.

One of the most disturbing and nullifying features of Scalia’s legal thinking was his ludicrous originalist interpretation of the U.S. Constitution, a document devised during the time of slavery that established and protected power of rich white men, denying rights and citizenship (even human status) to blacks, disenfranchising women and ignoring the plight of those who did not own property. This flawed and flaccid feature of his thought should have disqualified him as a justice from the get-go. In contrast to the many deluded, say-anything or -nothing pundits celebrating Scalia as a “towering intellect,” his inability to comprehend or address the legal significance of race, gender and class issues facing the nation demonstrates an intellectual cripple with little to no judicial wisdom on issues that count.

If karmic justice exists, Scalia will be reincarnated as a gay, black, cash-strapped, woman immigrant or an unsuspecting quail in the southwest Texas hunting grounds.

Sean Elias

Glenwood Springs