Homophobia-phobia at the L.A. Times

I didn't post anything in regards to Barney Frank calling Justice Scalia a "homophobe" because it was typical liberal vitriol that I didn't think deserved a response.  Liberals have a habit of accusing conservatives of being homophobic or racist, and voila, they don't have to address conservative arguments on the merits.  But now the L.A. Times has taken the baton from Frank and tried to put a politically correct gloss on his argument.  In the first paragraph they show that they agree with Frank even if they don't condone his actions.

Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) has been widely criticized for referring in a recent interview to "that homophobe Antonin Scalia," an injudicious exercise in name-calling that obscures Frank's larger and more valid point: that the opinions of the tart-tongued Supreme Court justice leave little doubt of his utter lack of sympathy for gays and lesbians. 

As we have pointed out in regards to Obama's ideal judge: it is not the role of the judiciary to have sympathy to anyone in front of the court.  Their job is to interpret the law as it is written regardless of the party involved.  This is the reason lady justice is pictured with a blindfold over her eyes.  Justice is blind, not sympathetic.  The Times clearly doesn't agree with this view of justice as they dismiss Scalia's view, the correct view, of the gay rights agenda.

Scalia's defenders argue that he has never actually denounced homosexuality or expressed such hostility. In fact, in his dissent in a 1996 decision striking down an anti-gay referendum in Colorado, Scalia wrote: "Let me be clear that I have nothing against homosexuals, or any other group, promoting their agenda through normal democratic means." Scalia says he objects to pro-gay-rights decisions for the reasons he rejects Roe vs. Wade: His colleagues are legislating from the bench. (emphasis added)

Failing to address the merits of this view, the Times expresses its displeasure that "Scalia has little enthusiasm for expanding gay rights."  This is the Times PC way of calling him a homophobe.  The Times editorial board goes on to cement the idea that they think judges should interpret the law based on feeling and empathy rather than textual interpretation in their closing paragraph.

How Scalia feels about gays and lesbians is not just an academic question. The courts are increasingly emerging as the arbiters of the gay-marriage dispute, and we suspect it won't be too long before the issue reaches the high court. With passages like these in the law books, Frank has reason to be concerned, and he didn't need to call Scalia a homophobe to make his point.

What the Times fails to point out is that it doesn't matter what any judge thinks about homosexuals.  The only thing that matters is the law that is being interpreted.  The Times has no time for such textual roadblocks, which they show by leaving their readers in the dark on some important constitutional information that Ed Morrissey points out in the original link.

The Supreme Court has no basis for intervening in what is a policy dispute.  The Constitution does not have any language that requires the federal government to recognize gay marriage, or to force states to do the same.   Regardless of Scalia’s personal biases or lack thereof, the matter belongs to the states and to the legislative branch.