More on the Scalia incident

Owen Courreges says in the comments section over at Southern Appeal:

Sandefur [is] being obtuse, and it’s infuriating. I’m frankly apalled to see otherwise intelligent people degrading themselves this way.

Your argument is this: If Scalia believes that Texas can make a law against sodomy, a law student at NYU can ask—without being disrespectful—whether or not Justice Scalia sodomizes his wife.

That’s a monster of a non-sequitur.

Quite so, but that is not what I said. The question is deeply disrespectful, and I said so. My entire point is that it is equally disrespectful for the voters of Texas to arrogate to themselves the authority to inquire into the private sexual life of John Geddes Lawrence and other homosexuals (and for Scalia to hold this constitutional). My argument is this: if private sexual acts are a matter for public discussion and legislation—as Scalia and Courreges believe—then there is nothing politically wrong with asking this question.

Courreges continues:

Let’s put it this way: We might all agree that pedophilia should be illegal. So does Justice Scalia. Would it then be permissible to ask Justice Scalia if he has sex with his own children? Of course not, but under...Sandefur’s logic it would be.

Indeed, it would be entirely permissible, and now is permissible, to ask Justice Scalia this question. He is a high level government official, and we routinely ask high level government officials whether they commit crimes. That is a proper thing to do. We asked Judge Ginsburg if he smoked pot. We asked Zoe Baird if she employed illegal aliens. We may ask Justice Scalia if he molests children. And if sodomy is on the same level, then we have the right to ask him if he commits that, too.

Courreges concludes, “stop being a jerk about this and admit that the question was inappropriate.” I have admitted the question is inappropriate—that was my entire point. Whether or not I am a jerk is not the issue. The issue is, why is it inappropriate to ask Justice Scalia this question, but okay to drag John Geddes Lawrence in handcuffs to the witness stand to ask him the same question?

It is nice to see that Courreges is capable of being appalled. Why is he not appalled by the idea that the state may send armed agents into our bedrooms to ensure that we are having the right kind of sex?

Update: Courreges continues to avoid the issue by employing words like pissant and whatnot, here. Fair enough. But, once again, that is not the issue. Granted that this student was a pissant—why? Because Justice Scalia’s private life is his private life, and nobody has the right to pry into such things. Well, then the same goes for John Geddes Lawrence and all other people: because we have a right to privacy that ought to protect us from such insulting interference. Yet this is precisely the principle that Scalia and Courreges deny. Scalia and Courreges cannot have it both ways. If the student is a pissant for violating Scalia’s right to privacy, then the voters of Texas were pissants for violating John Geddes Lawrence’s right to privacy. But if Lawrence has, as Scalia claims, no such right, then Scalia cannot have that right, either.