Jon Stewart takes on Justice Scalia’s dissent to the marriage equality ruling
The Daily Show’s Jon Stewart was happy to see the Confederate flag come down and Supreme Court uphold Obamacare and affirm same-sex marriage rights around the country — until he saw the conservative reaction.
“We all know the country’s been through a bit of a rough patch lately,” Stewart said. “But then all of a sudden out of nowhere, Confederate flags start coming down, Supreme Court decisions supporting health care, fair housing, marriage equality. It was a display stunning in its alacrity and completeness.”
But many conservatives weren’t pleased by the decisions, including Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX), who said on Friday that we are in “some of the darkest 24 hours in our nation’s history” — among others who consider the rulings an act of judicial overreach.
“Your problem isn’t judicial activism, or overreach, or politically correct policing,” Stewart responded. “Your problem here is bald-faced, out-in-the-open, common-sense experience. That’s why you’re not going to win the marriage equality fight.”
No one drew more ire from Stewart than Justice Antonin Scalia, who wrote fiery dissents to the Supreme Court’s rulings in favor of Obamacare and marriage equality last week.
“The crankiness of Scalia’s insults run inverse to his intellectual consistency”
In his opinion against marriage equality, Scalia argued that the a select few elites — “a select, patrician, highly unrepresentative panel of nine [justices]” — were imposing their will on the US by legalizing same-sex marriage in all 50 states.
“Right. Because unelected judges should never overturn the will of the voters. It’s a core Scalia principle,” Stewart joked. “Unless the voters’ will was for Obamacare, which he was glad to try to destroy the day before. Or if the voters wanted to limit campaign finance spending — then he had no problem telling people to fuck off at that time. Or if the voters want a Voting Rights Act and kept electing congresses that renewed its racial bias provision again and again by huge supermajorities — then not only did Scalia overturn it, he had no problem dismissing all those elected representatives’ motives for passing racial justice legislation in the first place.”
