Justice Antonin Scalia’s dissent in Friday’s historic Supreme Court decision to invalidate same-sex marriage bans is unsurprisingly scathing. But it’s striking to read not only Scalia’s withering assessment of the constituionality of the majority’s decision but his contemptuous response to their actual words. He seems especially annoyed with Justice Anthony Kennedy’s penchant for writing with an eye toward history, describing the opinion as being filled with “mummeries and straining-to-be-memorable passages.”
But it’s a bit later in his dissent that he really goes after the opinion with full force, spending over a page responding to line after line in a memorable round of “Really?! With Antonin”:
If you’re counting, that’s one “Really?”, one “Huh?”, one “What say?”, and two “[whatever that means].” Charged textual moments like this make the collegiality with which the justices regularly treat each other seem even more impressive.
Read more of Slate’s coverage of same-sex marriage at the Supreme Court, including:
