Letters: How the Supreme Court justices think

Re “Supreme justice,” Opinion, June 30

Michael J. Klarman states that “none of the [U.S. Supreme Court] justices takes a consistent position on whether important social and political controversies ought to be resolved through democratic decision-making.”

Be that as it may, there is consistency in how the justices approach such controversies. The liberal justices typically vote in favor of extending equality toward as many as possible, while the conservatives take the opposite approach.

The odd man is Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, who is generally sympathetic toward business and property interests and cool toward most civil rights claims.

Justice Antonin Scalia is the hypocrite on the court. After supporting the gutting of the Voting Rights Act, the next day he criticized the majority for ignoring the will of Congress in invalidating the Defense of Marriage Act, apparently finding Marbury vs. Madison — the 1803 decision that cemented constitutional review — to have been wrongly decided.

Robert J. Switzer

West Hollywood

The writer is a past president of the Lesbian and Gay Lawyers Assn. of Los Angeles.

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