Criminology

He was the first Italian-American to be appointed to serve in the United States Supreme Court back in 1986 by the Republican President, Ronald Reagan. His judicial philosophy is considered to be leaning more on the conservative side of the court. Precisely, he strongly and openly throws his weight on the strict adherence to the originality of the constitution, at least in the textual sense of it and strongly opposes the notion of the constitution as a living document.

One of the most memorable court rulings that support his strong conservative judicial philosophy is his dissent vote which he entered in Lawrence  Garner v. State of Texas 539 U.S. 558 (2003) when the Supreme Court overruled Bowers v. Hardwick, 478 U.S. 186 (1986). Voting 6-3 the Supreme Court held that state (Texas) laws that considered consensual sodomy among adult men as illegal were against the Due Process Clause and indeed a violation of the basic rights of the victims. Scalia did not agree with this. He was quoted saying that the prevailing mood among the American public is purely against persons who openly declare their sexual orientations as gay or gay supporters. In fact, the situation is even worse when such people are influential in one way or other in their daily lives, for instance if they are school masters, accountants , business partners, politicians, etc. He boldly asserted that many Americans are keen to protect themselves and those they love against homosexual behaviors which according to him are immoral and misleading.

Even so, he defended his position by arguing that contemporary perceptions of sexual as well as other morality aspects of the society are just normal given the changing times. But the main reason as to why he entered a dissent vote is that he believed the gay community is imposing their opinions on sexual matters on the American public instead of using accepted persuasive and democratic channels.