Out congressman Barney Frank elaborates on why he called Justice Scalia a homophobe

Kudos to Barney Frank for calling it as he sees it and not backing down. Not only that, but for actually backing up his comments with examples of why he feels as he does about Supreme Count Justice Antonin Scalia. The openly gay Massachusetts congressman wrote on Huffington Post today a piece simply called “Why I called Justice Scalia a homophobe.”

Here’s part of it:

While responding to questions from journalists about my characterization of Justice Antonin Scalia as a homophobe, I realized that the fact that I made that comment in conjunction with a potential lawsuit about the Defense of Marriage Act created some confusion as to my basis for that characterization.

My view that Justice Scalia is prejudiced against gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people is based, not on his position on marriage, but entirely on the angry minority opinions he wrote in two Supreme Court cases in which the majority held that gay and lesbian people had certain rights against discrimination regarding private consensual sex and political activity. In those two virulent dissents, Justice Scalia denounced the court majorities not simply for finding that it was unconstitutional to discriminate based on sexual orientation in cases involving political rights and the right to private consensual sex, but he also made it clear that in his view sex discrimination is not only permitted by the Constitution but is very much in society’s interest because homosexuality deserves to be treated with not only disapproval, but legal disability.