This post started out as a critique of two of the Supreme Court Justices who dissented on the same-sex marriage decision –especially Justice Clarence Thomas’ misuse of the “human dignity” concept in is dissent.
It was quickly overtaken by emotional and offensive comments by actor and gay rights advocate George Takei. See Updates II and III below.
Takei has now finally posted an apology on his FaceBook page.
It is posted below.
As this post has now become “all about Takei,” the title has been changed accordingly.
I owe an apology. On the eve of this Independence Day, I have a renewed sense of what this country stands for, and how I personally could help achieve it. The promise of equality and freedom is one that all of us have to work for, at all times. I know this as a survivor of the Japanese American internment, which each day drives me only to strive harder to help fulfill that promise for future generations.
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I recently was asked by a reporter about Justice Clarence Thomas’s dissent in the marriage equality cases, in which he wrote words that really got under my skin, by suggesting that the government cannot take away human dignity through slavery, or though internment. In my mind that suggested that this meant he felt the government therefore shouldn’t be held accountable, or should do nothing in the face of gross violations of dignity. When asked by a reporter about the opinion, I was still seething, and I referred to him as a “clown in blackface” to suggest that he had abdicated and abandoned his heritage. This was not intended to be racist, but rather to evoke a history of racism in the theatrical arts. While I continue to vehemently disagree with Justice Thomas, the words I chose, said in the heat of anger, were not carefully considered.
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I am reminded, especially on this July 4th holiday, that though we have the freedom to speak our minds, we must use that freedom judiciously. Each of us, as humans, have hot-button topics that can set us off, and Justice Thomas had hit mine, that is clear. But my choice of words was regrettable, not because I do not believe Justice Thomas is deeply wrong, but because they were ad hominem and uncivil, and for that I am sorry.
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I often ask fans to keep the level of discourse on this page and in comments high, and to remember that we all love this country and for what it stands for, even if we often disagree passionately about how to achieve those goals. I did not live up to my own high standards in this instance.
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I hope all of you have a wonderful, safe and joyously free July 4th, the first where all married couples in the U.S. can enjoy the full liberties of matrimony equally. It is truly a blessing to be an American today.
Update III:
George Takei has posted comments on his FaceBook page “explaining” his remarks calling Chief Justice Clarence Thomas “a clown in blackface.”
A few fans have written wondering whether I intended to utter a racist remark by referring to Justice Thomas as a “clown in blackface.”
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“Blackface” is a lesser known theatrical term for a white actor who blackens his face to play a black buffoon. In traditional theater lingo, and in my view and intent, that is not racist. It is instead part of a racist history in this country.
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I feel Justice Thomas has abdicated and abandoned his African American heritage by claiming slavery did not strip dignity from human beings. He made a similar remark about the Japanese American internment, of which I am a survivor. A sitting Justice of the Supreme Court ought to know better.
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I have expressed my full thoughts on the matter here.
Update II:
While I did not — and would not — use as strong (some call it racist) language as actor and gay rights advocate George Takei does to condemn Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas’ (mis)use of the concept of “human dignity” to buttress his dissent to the same-sex marriage decision, I understand Takei’s disgust with the Justice.
Reflecting on his time in a Japanese-American internment camp (one example misused by Thomas) as a young boy during World War II, Takei writes according to The Hill:
“I was only a child when soldiers with bayoneted rifles marched up our driveway in Los Angeles, banged on our door, and ordered us out…”
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“I remember my mothers’ tears as we gathered what little we could carry, and then were sent to live for many weeks in a single cramped horse stall at the Santa Anita racetracks.”
After additional reflections on his and his family’s experiences, Takei writes:
To say that the government does not bestow or grant dignity does not mean it cannot succeed in stripping it away through the imposition of unequal laws and deprivation of due process. At the very least, the government must treat all its subjects with equal human dignity…
In his piece, at the Hill, Jesse Byrnes writes:
In the Fox 10 interview, Takei also mentioned rape scenes from the movie “12 Years a Slave.”
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“And he says they had dignity as slaves?” Takei asked.
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“My parents lost everything that they worked for in the middle of their lives in their thirties. My father’s business, our home, our freedom. And we’re supposed to call that dignified?” Takei continued.
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“This man does not belong on the Supreme Court. He is an embarrassment. He is a disgrace to America.”
Earlier in the interview, Takei refers to Thomas as “a clown in blackface sitting on the Supreme Court.”
Update I:
Read Richard A. Posner’s article at Slate where the U.S. Court of Appeals Judge for the 7th Circuit maintains that it “is very difficult to distinguish the [same-sex marriage] case from Loving v. Virginia, which in 1967 invalidated state laws forbidding miscegenation
Original Post:
Much has already been said and written about what some call Supreme Court Justice Scalia’s “unhinged” eight-page dissent on the recent Supreme Court decision on marriage equality.
Although not as colorful as his “jiggery-pokery” dissent on the “SCOTUScare” ruling, Scalia’s dissent on same-sex marriage does offer some interesting “insights” liberally (sorry, Your Honor) sprinkled among “Really?”, “Huh?”, “What say?” “whatever that means” and other Scalia-isms. Scalia’s dissent even offers “what may be the first legal citation of a hippie” by suggesting to “[a]sk the nearest hippie.”
After claiming that this momentous case “is not of immense personal importance to [him],” Scalia opines:
This practice of constitutional revision by an unelected committee of nine, always accompanied (as it is today) by extravagant praise of liberty, robs the People of the most important liberty they asserted in the Declaration of Independence and won in the Revolution of 1776: the freedom to govern themselves.
That is, I suppose, the “freedom” to enslave a couple of generations of human beings, the freedom to — for another hundred years or so — deny their descendants and others who happen to be of a different skin color and of a different sexual orientation equal opportunity and the freedom to marry the person they love.
But, as I said, much has already been said and written about Scalia’s dissent.
However, another dissenter in Obergefell v. Hodges is a distinguished African-American member of our highest court who has rightfully benefitted from a number of U.S. Supreme Court rulings involving race discrimination and the rights of members of racial groups, including Loving v. Virginia.
Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, whom I refer to as the “Silent Judge” because his silence during Supreme Court proceedings is now legendary and whose silence has even been called “disgraceful,” is not “silent” this time — at least not in the written form.
Like Scalia, Thomas writes a lengthy dissent vigorously condemning the majority decision.
What is surprising about Thomas’ dissent is the fact that, had it not been for a Supreme Court decision in 1967 (Loving v. Virginia), his marriage to his wife, Virginia, would not be legal in some states.
In fact, Justice Anthony Kennedy, in the majority opinion, points to how “The history of marriage is one of both continuity and change” and how such changes “have strengthened, not weakened, the institution” and specifically mentions how Loving v. Virginia “invalidated bans on interracial unions.”
Kennedy also connects dignity (“individual dignity and autonomy”) to the same-sex marriage issue:
The Fourteenth Amendment requires a State to license a marriage between two people of the same sex. Pp. 10–27. (1) The fundamental liberties protected by the Fourteenth Amendment’s Due Process Clause extend to certain personal choices central to individual dignity and autonomy, including intimate choices defining personal identity and beliefs
But even more surprising is how Thomas mis-uses “dignity” and the shame of slavery to justify and support his dissenting opinion.
Pooh-poohing the majority’s opinion that this historic decision “will advance the ‘dignity’ of same-sex couples,” Thomas asserts that the Constitution contains no “dignity” Clause, “and even if it did, the government would be incapable of bestowing dignity.”
He continues:
. ..human dignity cannot be taken away by the government. Slaves did not lose their dignity (any more than they lost their humanity) because the government allowed them to be enslaved. Those held in internment camps did not lose their dignity because the government confined them. And those denied governmental benefits certainly do not lose their dignity because the government denies them those benefits. The government cannot bestow dignity, and it cannot take it away.
Say what?
The government may not be able to “bestow” life, freedom, “inalienable rights” or dignity, but it certainly can take them away or deny them as it does with capital punishment, as it did with slavery, as it did with segregation, as it did with inter-racial marriage laws and — with respect to dignity and equal rights — as Justice Thomas attempts to perpetuate with his “respectful dissent.”
Yes, Justice Thomas, the Court’s decision “will have inestimable consequences for our Constitution and our society,” but not in the way you narrow-mindedly envision.
Lead photo: Rena Schild / Shutterstock.com
