The Supreme Court's self-destruction

By Phil Lawler ( bio - articles - email ) | Jun 27, 2003

The full text of Justice Scalia's dissent in the Lawrence case is eminently worth reading. But this particular passage is a must:

The Court's claim that Planned Parenthood v. Casey "casts some doubts" upon the holding in Bowers (or any other case, for that matter) does not withstand analysis... And if the Court is referring not to the holding of Casey, but to the dictum of its famed sweet-mystery-of-life passage ("At the heart of liberty is the right to define one's own concept of existence, of meaning, of the universe, and of the mystery of human life."): That "casts some doubt" upon either the totality of our jurisprudence or else (presumably the right answer) nothing at all. I have never heard of a law that attempted to restrict one's "right to define" certain concepts; and if the passage calls into question the government's power to regulate actions based on one's self-defined "concept of existence, etc.," it is the passage that ate the rule of law.