Referencing the recent decisions to strike down Proposition 8 and a key part of the so-called Defense of Marriage Act, Justice Antonin Scalia said it was not the Supreme Court's place to "invent new minorities," reports the Associated Press.
At a gathering sponsored by the Federalist Society, Scalia spoke before a crowd of more than 300 people in Bozeman, Mont., saying he believed the Supreme Court should only make exceptions outside the Constitution when a majority of people agree. "It's not up to the courts to invent new minorities that get special protections," he said.
Scalia insisted that matters such as this should be decided by Congress or constitutional amendment rather than a majority of five high court justices.
Scalia, who was appointed to the Supreme Court in 1986 by President Ronald Reagan, was one of the four justices who voted against striking down DOMA's section 3 and therefore clearing the way for same-sex marriages to be recognized by the federal government. He has been one of the most vocal justices in opposition to LGBT equality, repeatedly speaking out against the legalization of same-sex marriage and LGBT rights in general.
In June, Scalia addressed the North Carolina Bar Association in Asheville, saying that judges are in error when they find rights to "homosexual conduct" or abortion in the Constitution.
One month later, Scalia met with a group of attorneys from the Utah State Bar Association and claimed that the Holocaust was brought about in part by judicial activism and that judges are not qualified to legislate a right to "homosexual sodomy."
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