Barney Frank's Distraction

Think Progress is really bad. After attacking John McCain last year with allegations of plagiarism, the editors issued an apology that included this preface: "As a blog that strives to maintain credibility and transparency ..." Yeah. Right. That's just before the tortuous mea culpa.

Now Think Progress has attacked Fox News as enabling Justice Antonin Scalia's alleged bigotry, "Fox News Attacks Barney Frank for Accurately Characterizing Scalia’s Views as Homophobic."

The background to the controversy is here (Frank attacked Scalia as a "homophobe"). Dr. Sanity suggests that Frank's attack is a perfect example of "how postmodern rhetoric works so brilliantly - to distract from real issues and a rational discussion of them." But the best response is Ann Althouse's. She goes right to the source of Frank's allegations, Justice Scalia's dissenting opinion in Texas v. Johnson (2003):

Let me be clear that I have nothing against homosexuals, or any other group, promoting their agenda through normal democratic means. Social perceptions of sexual and other morality change over time, and every group has the right to persuade its fellow citizens that its view of such matters is the best. That homosexuals have achieved some success in that enterprise is attested to by the fact that Texas is one of the few remaining States that criminalize private, consensual homosexual acts. But persuading one’s fellow citizens is one thing, and imposing one’s views in absence of democratic majority will is something else. I would no more require a State to criminalize homosexual acts–or, for that matter, display any moral disapprobation of them–than I would forbid it to do so. What Texas has chosen to do is well within the range of traditional democratic action, and its hand should not be stayed through the invention of a brand-new “constitutional right” by a Court that is impatient of democratic change. It is indeed true that “later generations can see that laws once thought necessary and proper in fact serve only to oppress,”... and when that happens, later generations can repeal those laws. But it is the premise of our system that those judgments are to be made by the people, and not imposed by a governing caste that knows best.

Althouse summarizes, saying "There is nothing — absolutely nothing — to support the proposition that Scalia thinks it's a good idea to lock up gay people."

Maybe Think Progress will issue an apology to Justice Scalia.

Hat Tip: Glenn Reynolds, who notes, "don’t be distracted into forgetting about Barney Frank’s financial issues, which is what he’d like you to do."

Image Credit: The People's Cube.