Supreme Court
2003-06-26, 12:14 p.m.

Even though I am no longer in law school and even though I have no desire to participate in the legal profession, there is still a bit of law school geek within me.

This week, the Supreme Court has done a lot to appease the law school geek within me.

They handed down a decision that was pro-affirmative action.

They handed down a decision holding that filtering software on library computers is not a violation of First Amendment rights. I, on the other hand, do think it is an impermissible violation of First Amendment rights�but I�m not sitting on the bench�so there you go.

And yesterday, they handed down a decision holding that the Texas law banning homosexual sodomy was unconstitutional. The court rested their decision on privacy grounds with O�Connor the lone justice to say it was unconstitutional on equal protection grounds as well. O�Connor is probably my favorite current justice, she is so often the swing vote and therefore wields a lot of power. And yes I do have favorites.

Scalia*** (my least favorite justice), dissented stating that the Court had signed onto the homosexual agenda and taken sides in a cultural war. He did add that he has nothing against homosexuals because after all Seinfeld has left us with the maxim: �Not that there is anything wrong with that.�

***I was talking to another law clerk here at work about the Supreme Court�s decisions and he told me about a class he took with some senator. The senator was friends with Scalia and told the class that Scalia was very good friends with another member of the Court and they often took family vacations together. The very good friend is none other than Ruth Bader Ginsberg. These two are at the opposite ends of the universe politically�can you imagine what the dinner conversation is like?