Supreme Court Justice: Sexual orgies eliminate social tensions
By DANIEL J. HEMEL
Crimson Staff Writer
The Supreme Court’s recent decisions protecting abortion rights, upholding the legalization of assisted suicide and striking down anti-sodomy laws represent a “dangerous” trend, Justice Antonin Scalia told a Harvard audience last night.
Scalia held the rapt attention of the jam-packed John F. Kennedy Jr. Forum last night, although some students and faculty said they were put off by his conservative judicial philosophy.
In a freewheeling question-and-answer session following the justice’s prepared remarks, an African-American graduate student challenged Scalia to defend the constitutionality of racial profiling.
The Kennedy School student, Larry Harris Jr., said that his Fourth and 14th Amendment rights had been violated when he was pulled over in Cambridge for—as he put it—“driving while black.”
Scalia was less convinced.
“What the Fourth Amendment prohibits is ‘unnecessary’ search and seizure,” the justice said. “Is it racial profiling prohibited by the Fourth Amendment for the police to go looking for a white man with blue eyes? Do you want to stop little old ladies with tennis shoes?”
The eccentric justice launched into a parody of a police radio dispatch under a scenario in which profiling were prohibited. “The suspect is 5’10, we know what he looks like, but we can’t tell you,” Scalia quipped—drawing laughter from the audience.
Harris was less amused. He said afterwards that “the flippancy with which [Scalia] dealt with the question was insensitive. It shows that on issues like this, he might be a little out of touch.”
Earlier in the evening, Scalia ridiculed the European Court of Human Rights’ 2000 decision striking down British legislation that bars group gay sex on the grounds that the law intruded upon private life.
He asked—rhetorically—how many individuals would have to be involved in a sex act for it to no longer qualify as “private.”
“Presumably it is some number between five and the number of people required to fill the Coliseum,” Scalia joked.
An audience member later rose to ask Scalia “whether you have any gay friends, and—if not—whether you’d like to be my friend.”
“I probably do have some gay friends,” Scalia said. “I’ve never pressed the point.”
But Scalia said his personal views on social issues have no bearing on his courtroom decisions.
“I even take the position that sexual orgies eliminate social tensions and ought to be encouraged,” Scalia said.
“But it is blindingly clear that judges have no greater capacity than the rest of us to decide what is moral.”
Scalia graduated magna cum laude from Harvard Law School in 1960 and become the first Italian-American Supreme Court justice in 1986.
He said that jurists should be selected for their “lawyerly skills and judicial temperament.” But he said that the Court’s progressive voices had politicized the judicial process in recent years.
Dunster House resident Zachary D. Liscow ’05 rose during the question-and-answer session to suggest that Scalia’s own vote in the controversial 2000 presidential election case could be viewed as an example of the “judicial activism” Scalia deplores.
“I do not mean by [‘judicial activism’] judges actively doing what they’re supposed to do,” Scalia responded. He said the Florida Supreme Court’s decision to order a recount in Miami-Dade County—a decision Scalia and his colleagues overruled—amounted to a “clear violation of the federal constitution.”
And while conservative justices have been criticized for effectively deciding the 2000 election themselves, Scalia quipped: “Would you rather have the president of the United States decided by the Supreme Court of Florida?”
While Scalia’s prepared speech—which lasted less than half an hour—was narrowly focused, his remarks in the 20-minute question-and-answer question spanned a broad range of topics.
In one of the more bizarre moments of the evening, Scalia mentioned—in passing—that he thought the 17th Amendment was “a bad idea.”
The 17th Amendment provides for the direct election of senators.
The students, faculty and community members who held tickets to last night’s event were the winners of an online lottery in which 2,016 entrants competed for 850 spots.
The fortunate few who scored seats walked out of the forum wowed.
“That was quite possibly the most eloquent speech I have ever heard,” said Hurlbut resident Eduardo E. Santacana ’08.
Copyright © 2004, The Harvard Crimson Inc. All rights reserved.
Related:
New York Post: Gay Porn Star Services Bohemian Grove Members
New York Post Page Six (Archived Page) | July 22 2004
Comment: The spin here is that the Grove members are unaware of who the porn star is. Point one - porn stars get paid tens of thousands of dollars, it's highly unlikely that 'Chad Savage' needs a part time summer job to earn money. Point two - as the San Francisco Chronicle reported , employees are highly screened, they don't just get in 'by accident.' To get in without them knowing you would have to sneak in like Alex did. Plus there have been numerous reports down the years of how male prostitutes are bused in especially for the members.
July 22, 2004 -- THE power-moguls and political heavyweights now luxuriating at ultra-exclusive retreat Bohemian Grove are unaware that they're being waited on hand-and-foot by a famous gay porn star.
We're told that "Chad Savage," who has appeared in such carnal classics as "How the West Was Hung," is supplementing his sex job by working as a valet at Bohemian Grove, the all-male annual gathering inside a 2,700-acre redwood forest in Monte Rio, Calif., that has been attended by every Republican president since Calvin Coolidge, as well as by industrial titans and media magnates.
"All of us valets in the Grove are tittering about it," says our Bohemian blabbermouth. "To think there's all these powerful conservative guys having their drinks and food served to them by a gay porn star. He makes their beds and attends to their every need — and they have no idea who he really is."
Bigwigs who have attended the two-week retreat include George H.W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Alan Greenspan, Walter Cronkite, Newt Gingrich, Alexander Haig, Jack Kemp, Henry Kissinger, Colin Powell, John Major, William F. Buckley, and former C.I.A. director William Casey.
Savage is at the Grove under his real name — which we wouldn't reveal to Grove spokesman Sam Singer, because we didn't want the valet to lose his job. But Singer said the club didn't care about his past. "All that matters is that the valets do good service," he said. "That's really all that matters."
Savage sure knows how to provide "service." When he starred in "How the West Was Hung" in 1999, one reviewer wrote that he wore a "beatific grin" while engaging in an orgy, and added that his "youthful enthusiasm is entirely winning."
When they're not listening to policy speeches, "Bohos" are known to urinate freely in the redwoods and perform mock-druidic rituals that revolve around a 40-foot-tall stone owl. In one ritual, called "Cremation of Care," members wearing red-hooded robes cremate a coffin effigy of "Dull Care" at the base of the owl altar.
While the club has claimed its share of accomplishments — Grovers privately boast that the Manhattan Project to develop the atom bomb was conceived on its grounds — its oddball activities aren't for everyone. Richard Nixon once famously described the gathering as "the most faggy goddamned thing you could ever imagine."
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