Supreme Court Justice Scalia’s Son Was Chaplain At Catholic ‘Ex-Gay’ Ministry

var addthis_config = {“data_track_addressbar”:true};

The son of U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia was a chaplain at a so-called “ex-gay” Roman Catholic ministry, Courage (logo, right), and Justice Scalia, it turns out, doesn’t believe in gay people, only gay behavior. These shocking revelations come from an L.A. Times op-ed written by Michael McGough, in part as an explanation and response to hero of the week, Duncan Hosie, the Princeton freshman who forced the elder Scalia to defend his anti-gay animus that appears in his Lawrence v. Texas dissent.

“The conventional interpretation of  Scalia’s opinions in gay-rights cases is that he doesn’t like gays; but maybe the more accurate gloss is that he doesn’t believe they exist — except when they are engaging in (or thinking about) ‘immoral and unacceptable’ sexual acts,” McGough writes:

The quotations from Scalia opinions that so dismayed  Princeton freshman Duncan Hosie all referred to homosexual conduct. For example, in a 1996 case the majority of the court held that voters in Colorado had exhibited “animus” toward gays by making it impossible for the state or municipalities to pass laws protecting them from discrimination. Scalia responded: “I had thought that one could consider certain conduct reprehensible — murder, for example, or polygamy, or cruelty to animals — and could exhibit even ‘animus’ toward such conduct.”   In his dissent Scalia did refer to “homosexuals” (he assiduously avoided the word “gay” except in quoted material), but he used that term interchangeably with “those who engage in homosexual conduct.”

Meanwhile, John Becker, the man who exposed Congresswoman Michele Bachmann and her husband, Marcus, as owners of a therapy practice that has engaged in “ex-gay” therapy, writes:

Just days after Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia shockingly equated homosexuality with murder in an appearance at Princeton University, another troubling revelation has emerged: Scalia’s son Paul, a Roman Catholic priest, has served as chaplain for the Arlington, Virginia chapter of Courage, an official Catholic apostolate that ministers to people with so-called “same-sex attractions” — or what the rest of the world refers to as lesbian, gay, and bisexual people.

Becker quotes Scalia, from the L.A. Times’ piece:

He [Scalia] has written: “We must always distinguish the person from the attractions. Most errors in this area come from the reduction of the person to the attractions: to say,  ‘A person who has homosexual attractions must be homosexual.’  This reduces the human person to the sum total of his sexual inclinations.”

“The last time I heard that frighteningly dehumanizing lie was when I was undercover receiving ‘ex-gay’ therapy at the Bachmann clinic. No joke,” Becker says.

Becker concludes:

One of the nine people who will get to decide next year whether LGBTs are worthy of basic human rights, that’s who.

Anybody else see a problem with that?

Extraordinarily troubling.

The right has attacked Prop 8 judge Vaughn Walker for not recusing himself because he’s gay and is in a long term relationship.

Surely this is far more damning — especially since Walker’s homosexuality and relationship were both well-known and, when challenged in court, a federal judge ruled no only did Walker have no reason to recuse himself, doing so would have been damaging to the judiciary.

Anyway.

Not convinced this is a problem, yet?

U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia is reportedly a member of Opus Dei.

Supposedly, so is U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas.

Now how do you feel?

To be clear, I honor the First Amendment and the unfettered practice of religion — until it knocks on my door and comes into my home.

There are many issues to be considered here — which I’ll leave to legal experts.

But it’s something we should all be aware of.