OPINION: Justice Anthony Kennedy was ‘Catholic conservatives’ worst nightmare’ on the Supreme Court | Christine Flowers
The first time I longed to hear that phrase was in 1992 when he penned the majority decision in
Except it didn't go as planned.
Kennedy, picked by
Instead, he was the conservative Catholics' worst nightmare.
On
The thing that stung, aside from the unexpected betrayal of a Catholic conservative's embrace of abortion rights, was the language Kennedy used in his opinion. It was as if he were writing really bad poetry, the kind you'd find in the personal journals of a women's studies major. He gave us what
"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."
I read that and thought: Help.
As the years progressed, it only got worse. Kennedy took it upon himself to be the Great Liberator, removing the shackles from a prudish and -- in his view -- unjust society. He single-handedly legalized sodomy in the 2003 decision Lawrence v. Texas, and did so in the most unnecessarily generous way possible, noting that the government cannot "define the meaning of the [intimate sexual] relationship or set its boundaries absent injury to a person or abuse of an institution the law protects."
That was "sweet mystery of life" on steroids.
This prompted an increasingly agitated Scalia to warn in his dissent that we had greased the slippery slope of moral relativism to the point that -- crazy as it seemed -- we'd be legalizing same sex marriage in a few years.
It actually took 12 more years before Scalia's prophecy became reality, in Obergefell v. Hodges written by, you guessed it.
By that point, I'd given up on Kennedy. At least with the avowed liberals on the court, there was no hope they'd ever do anything I could support, admire or even understand.
But Kennedy had been like Lucy in Peanuts, always promising that he'd come over from the dark side and stand with his conservative brethren. He might throw us a bone like he did when he wrote the opinion banning a particularly gruesome form of partial birth abortion, but when we inched closer and got ready to kick the football, he yanked it away with another decision that sounded like a cross between
Each year, on the last day of a session I'd think, maybe this is when he finally goes home to
Not this time.
First, there was that amazing decision upholding the free speech rights of pro-life groups. Then came the shocking-not-shocking ruling on the travel ban. Then came the opinion against unions. And then, the 81-year-old justice announced his retirement.
I couldn't catch my breath. It was hard to believe that the all-powerful swing justice was headed out to pasture.
Hallelujah, pass the popcorn.
I know that the
All I know is that after 30 years, we'll finally get opinions that don't sound they belong in
And, maybe, some justice for unborn babies.
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