The Sex Life Of Antonin Scalia

He has nine children because he doesn’t believe in contraceptives.

“Why does Justice Antonin Scalia, by common consent the leading intellectual force on the Court, have nine children?”

Because when you say the word “oral” to Scalia he automatically thinks “argument”?

“The Sex Life On Antonin Scalia”

Shouldn’t that be “The Sex Life Of Antonin Scalia”?
On makes makes it sound like we’re actively involved.

Jay,
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Just curious. Why are these type TIME articles never about Democrats? They are always about Republicans or Conservatives.
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A free press is absolutely crucial to our democracy. Our Founding Fathers knew our country need a free press that would provide unbiased accurate information to our citizens. Only in this manner would our citizens have the information they need to make informed decisions.
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Do you and the rest of TIME reporters believe it is appropriate for a reporter to be politically biased in their reporting?

He’s still ten down to the Duggars.

Our Founding Fathers knew our country need a free press that would provide unbiased accurate information to our citizens.

Actually our Founding Fathers knew that we needed a free press that could say or print whatever it wanted short of libel. The desire for it to be ‘unbiased’ is market driven. There exists a market for truth. There also exists a market for propaganda. The fact that the Right as a rule has more ‘team’ loyalty than the left helps shape the peculiar lack of balance we have at this particular moment in History.

Daughter Prissy makes up to $30K a speech to warn teens not to have sex until they’re good ‘n ready. Boring Dem families like mine can’t draw that kind of jack or get that kind of delicious irony, don’t you know that?!

“Daughter Prissy makes up to $30K a speech to warn teens not to have sex until they’re good ‘n ready.”

That’s where she screwed up. She mistakenly said “good ‘n wet”. The rest is an American success story.

Michael Scherer:
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Why does Michael Kinsley compare same-sex orientation, which is a matter of identity, like Scalia’s Catholicism, with a public figure’s “sex life” represented by whatever frequency it took to produce 9 children, as if those to items were somehow in the same category?
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Why do national political writers seem to imply that being gay is akin to the variances (perverse or otherwise) heterosexual people entertain in their bedrooms?
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Whether public figures are having sex (or not) with their spouses (or not) in all the variegated manifestations that implies isn’t at all the same thing as whether they are or are not a Jew, or a Baptist, or of Armenian descent, or a Catholic, or gay, or a female, right, Michael Scherer?

Nine children!

Admirable!

That’s a tough woman if she can have that many.

I’m old-school Irish: Marry late and have at least – at least – three kids (but nine is damn good if you can afford it and your wife is able to do that.)

And are they all camera-shy?

I was the last of four. In a way that worked to my advantage. The first three wore them out mentally and physically. As long as I didn’t kill anybody and kept out of jail, they were thrilled. Being an honors student helped out immeasureably too. Every time my brothers and sister would complain that “You NEVER let us get away with that!”, my parents would tell them that they never got straight A’s either. They probably should have been a little stricter. On my siblings.

Just another example of the widespread [and baffling!!] “on”line sloppiness!

Sorry, “those two items”…

……I include sacredh typing “makes” twice in my remark.
What’s so cruelly difficult about proofreading??

“He has nine children because he doesn’t believe in contraceptives.”

Or abortion!

Once again Obama showing he is not a big fan of the founding fathers or the constituiton

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162-20005146-503544.html?tag=contentMain;contentBody

Am I the only one trying to beat down a mental image of a three way with Scalia, Clarence Thomas, and Ruth Ginsburg? And Anita Hill holding the Coke can….somebody help me

gloriousglo2 you have taken a mental picture I was having of Scalia (aargh) and now made it even more horrifying. Stop!

I think Kinsley is making a joke, the point of which is that the sex lives of Supreme Court Justices are none of our business.
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The problem with the Kagan stuff (other than the fact that all evidence suggests she is straight) is that it presumed that something about an individuals sex life that that individual did not want to share was a public matter.
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Another problem was the assumption that sexual identities fit into neat little boxes, but that is another matter.

“Supreme Court Sexcapades”…coming soon to an IMAX near you!

Channeling your inner Gunny aint’cha?

Hey Freep (1.3), Scaldy can afford HIS army. I take it you want to force your “belief” on those who can’t, right?

Jeez, the guy has fathered a softball team! Uniform: brownshirts? And on any given softball team, I’d guess he has at least one gay member…

Once again, 3x plays the martyr.
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I guess his short-term memory must be so addled that he didn’t remember the Richard Blumenthal posts or the one about Democrats not being motivated this cycle.
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This is yet another example of typical conservative faux outrage. Someone get 3x a fainting couch and a warm cup of milk.

I do this for free and fun. Nobody pays me to proof-read or write. That’s why I’m a little sloppy.

I takes my inspirations where I can find em’. ; )

I get where you’re going Stuart, but I don’t recall any legislation recently than attempted to limit the rights of Armenians. As long as there is a legal separation between the rights of gay citizens and the rights of heterosexual citizens, the orientation topic is going to be a valid one, on both sides of the ideological divide. That’s also why the “its none of our business” angle doesn’t float. A lot of people think it IS part of our business to know this about candidates.
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I get where Kinsley was going, too – that we shouldn’t be focused on transient sexuality traits when we evaluate public servants – but I think he used a clumsy example to make his point.
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The times they are a changin’, but they haven’t changed yet.

This strikes me as dangerously close to the argument that being gay (identity) isn’t sinful/shameful/whatever, but that actual non-heterosexual foolin’ around is. Are these two things really that separable? I mean, yes, there are celibates of every orientation (both voluntary and non), but for most people, one’s sexual identity and one’s sex life are not somehow unrelated.
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And I apologize to any asexuals I may have inadvertently offended there.

“I was the last of four.”
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I was the second of four.
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You learn a great deal by having siblings.

Michael Scherer:
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Thanks so much for responding to commentary, it greatly enhances the value of this blog.
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I think Kinsley is making a joke, the point of which is that the sex lives of Supreme Court Justices are none of our business.
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Yes, that’s obvious. Of course, the identities of the Justices are a matter of public concern, especially if they were to be deliberately concealed (for some reason).
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Whether or not someone is gay isn’t really related to their sex lives…just ask people who know that they are gay, but haven’t yet had sex: link to “Gay virgins prove that it’s possible to separate the sex from the sexual orientation”, or people who have tried sex with their own gender, but aren’t gay: link to “Survey: Females in late teens and 20s report increasing same-sex contact”. Regardless of your (accurate) point that it is frequently not the case that “sexual identities fit into neat little boxes,” orientation is not the sum total of our physical, private sexual experiences and details. It is, as you say, a sexual identity.
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The problem with describing someone’s orientation as their “sex life,” as in
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…presumed that something about an individuals sex life that that individual did not want to share was a public matter
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is that it takes a strange bit of shutting-down of the faculties to render ones’ self incapable of distinguishing between a sex act and sexual orientation.
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When you say that being gay or straight is “something about an individual’s sex life”, you’re really describing sex acts, not the fact of the subject’s sexuality itself. Of course specific sex acts are the substance of a subject’s private sex life, and are to be questioned or revealed only in circumstances that absolutely merit that destruction of privacy, such as their illegality, e.g. Eliot Spitzer. Likewise, various aspects of sex acts, such as the implied frequency mocked by Kinsley, virginity (or promiscuity), or those details which fall in or out of generally accepted normalcy bounds, e.g. fetishes, proclivities, etc, obviously fall into the realm of a subject’s private sex life, and most probably do not merit the specific lens of journalism.
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Sexual orientation, on the other hand, shares none of the privacy characteristics of acts or practices, as can easily be demonstrated by reflecting on the common assumption most of us share about the heterosexuality of most individuals we meet. It doesn’t constitute the destruction of Megan McCain’s privacy to ask her what the top 3 qualities would be for a man she would be likely to marry –even though that question clearly implies she’s a heterosexual– does it?
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If it’s not a shockingly invasive question to ask of Megan McCain, then it isn’t to ask of Elena Kagan, either. In either case you’re not asking about the “private sex life” of the subject. The only possible way that could constitute an invasion of privacy is if Megan McCain wanted the fact of her heterosexuality concealed, for some reason…don’t you think?

Is Ruth wearing a black skin-tight latex body suit with nine inch high heels and slapping a cat o’ nine tails against her thigh? Are Clarence and Antonin down on all fours with leather head masks and rubber balls strapped in their mouths? Is Anita scowling? If Anita isn’t scowling and holding the coke can…such a mental image would never cross my mind in a million years.

One of 10 myself. Honored to part of it, too. Wouldn’t have it any other way. Anyone belittling or condescending such a family obviously has never understood the true meaning of a family. Sadly, this is most likely the majority of Americans. We now have so many elements coursing through our families -exs, step-families, half-siblings, etc- that the nucleus has become obliterated and we don’t even value a family for what it should be that separates it from other close relationships in our lives. Perhaps people should look in the mirror at their own disheveled family existence before demeaning two people who have obviously dedicated themselves to raising children and to keeping a family bond alive and well.

jcpan: Scalia fell short. I have a cousin who had 12 children so the bishop would baptize the last child. It worked out ok though because the Church made sure he ran the local Saint Vincent DePaul store and his kids always had used clothes. He was my godfather. I
missed his lectures on celibacy before marriage.
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Somehow in a very strict Catholic family, most of the members avoided trying to meet this 12 child challenge.

“I missed his lectures on celibacy before marriage.”
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apr2563: As long as you didn’t have sex while he was lecturing on celibacy, I’m sure you were forgiven.

Or he’s really bad at rhythm.

Sacredh,
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I have four children with my youngest being my son Jeff.
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Your comment fit my family to a tee.
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The first three did ware us out and Jeff got away with a lot more than his brothers and sister. They still complain about that.
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Jeff was also very smart and it was like arguing with an attorney when ever you told him no. He’s now 35 and turned out great. Of all my children he has wisdom way beyond his years. Being the youngest has advantages.

Exiled: Are you really saying that, as an infertile woman who cannot have children of her own (and who has chosen not to adopt because of shenanigans in her spouse’s family of origin – just because it was large didn’t mean it was good), I don’t know the meaning of family? Claiming that “real” families only come in size Extra-Large is just as demeaning, and ultimately meaningless, as claiming that they only come in sizes Small and Medium.

I think your formulation of “sexual orientation” might work for most people, but by no means all. Some men who have sex with men do not identify as gay. Some women who have had sex with both men and women identify as straight. Some people, who are otherwise fully developed, have no sex lives at all. Some people’s sexual orientations shift over time. One of the problems with the Andrew Sullivan identity argument is that it assumes a fixed identity for everyone. This is complicated further by the fact that people have, at least in our culture, the right to keep their sexual behaviors and orientation a secret, if they so choose. (This latter fact is seen as a problem for many gays and lesbians, who think that living in the closet is always bad thing. I am not sure I agree.) Again none of this has anything to do with the Kagan appointment, but they were issues raised when people started whispering, without any clear basis, about her orientation.

3xfire3: I was by far the wildest of the four but I was also smart enough to learn from their mistakes. I made my bed as soon as I got up. I did the dishes after dinner without being asked. I cut the grass before it really needed it and was in the gifted program at school. As far as my parents were concerned, I was the child they’d been hoping for. All the crazy stuff I did was just “a phase I was going through”. My mom found a pound of weed in my room when I was 12 and let me keep it because I convinced her that it helped me to concentrate on my studies. I’ve never needed much sleep and would read 4-5 books a week. Other than once accidentally leaving a pan of brownies in the kitchen that trashed the whole family, I saved the crazy stuff for when I was away from the house. I even convinced them the effects from the brownies were food poisoning.

I do this for free and fun. … That’s why I’m a little sloppy.

Famous words spoken to the wife, ex, or old gf?

“Famous words spoken to the wife, ex, or old gf?”
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Yes.

“Again none of this has anything to do with the Kagan appointment, but they were issues raised when people started whispering, without any clear basis, about her orientation.”
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I still don’t know how I feel about this. As AS has concluded, with the muscular “she’s straight” retort on the record, it shouldn’t play any role going FWD … during Kagan’s confirmation. But as a theoretical discussion…
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We can all agree that in most of life’s arenas, keeping one’s orientation a secret is perfectly acceptable. Denying negative repercussions is like denying race-based prejudice. But the SCOTUS is not “most arenas.” Nor is the presidency IMO.
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Problems I have are “oriented” around:
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1. Obama’s own emphasis on biography as a major factor in his selection/would-be qualifications of a nominee
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2. The obvious: that Kagan will not be expected (by bipartisan consensus ultimately) to answer any questions of substance concerning her ideological “orientation,” let alone who, if anyone, she likes to sleep with. Therefore shifting the chattering class into noxious pseudo-puritan focus on the activity of her loins.
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Neither 1 or 2 are particularly convincing to me, mind you. A potentially gay nominee shouldn’t be the scapegoat for a process that’s become utterly vacuous for all the players.
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3. As Square mentioned recently, can we agree that for some closeted gays, there are significant repression and/or self-esteem issues in play? See GOP out-ee of the week.
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Still not sure this convinces me, but it does nag at my unsophisticated soul. She could also, per the Harvard thesis, be a closet socialist (would it were so)–wouldn’t such ideological cowardice, fear of correctly IDing your innermost political fantasies also reflect poorly on a would-be SCJ?
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And somehow, doesn’t this connect to the self-described liberals thread?

Omorka~
Really? That’s what you extrapolated from my comment. I do believe that I said “anyone belittling or condescending” a large family simply because of its largeness does not understand the concept of family. What I did not state, or imply, was that anyone not from a large family does not understand the concept of a family. Do try to not be so defensive.

Thanks once again for engaging in this extended public dialogue, Michael Scherer.

paul @4.1
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How do you account for the constitutional mandate that was used to justify the public education system and therefore an “informed electorate”?
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