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Hey Justice Scalia, Are These Sex Acts OK?

Antonin Scalia told Princeton students that bans on murder were equivalent to bans on homosexuality and that laws that prohibited "immoral" activity were fine. So what other sex acts would he be OK with us banning? Would Scalia like to make it illegal...

Antonin Scalia is a Supreme Court Justice, which means he’s an important guy. He’s such a big shot he gets to wear a robe at work and no one says anything, and he also gets invited to speak at places like Princeton University. “Come talk in front of our students and just say whatever you want!” the people in charge of Princeton said, probably. “Like, whatever. You’re such a good thinker that you literally run the country, so whatever you say is going to be so fucking awesome. Can’t wait!”

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But the downside to being an important guy who gets invited to speak at Princeton is that when you say something that sounds kind of weird—or kinda dumb—it spreads all over the internet. In this case, the weird- and dumb-sounding thing he said was that the government can ban stuff that is “immoral” and, while attempting to illustrate his point, he compared bans on homosexuality with bans on murder. Ha ha, what? He explained it this way to the Princeton student who asked him about that comparison, and didn’t waste the chance to be kind of a dick:

“It’s a form of argument that I thought you would have known, which is called the ‘reduction to the absurd’… If we cannot have moral feelings against homosexuality, can we have it against murder? Can we have it against other things?”

I thought Scalia would have known the difference between murder and sodomy—whereas both are things that involve two or more people doing stuff to each other, in sodomy’s case everyone wants it to happen (“Hey, please put that doohickey in that hole, please”), and in murder’s case one guy really, really doesn’t want it to. If we use the “reduction to the absurd” technique that Scalia loves so much, he’s saying that you can make a law against literally anything that a bunch of people find immoral, even if what you’re outlawing is a private activity between consenting adults. So, presumably, according to Scalia we could ban all of these sex acts, none of which are “gay” but are probably “immoral”:

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Masturbating while your cat is watching.

Having sex in your old room while staying at your parents’ house for the holidays.

Doing that thing where she’s like, “I’m an innocent elf maiden in peril!” and you’re like, “I’ll save you, for I am Galathor the Liberator!” and then you fuck like crazy and it’s really good and you have a talk afterward like, “Hey, is this weird? It’s not weird, right? I’m so glad we figured out we’re both into this! I love you."

Locking the bedroom door so your cat has to watch you masturbate.

Doing that elf maiden/Liberator scenario as above, only instead of sexy ears and hats and swords, you use black robes and one of you pretends to be Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia.

Having sex while actually being Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia.

Exchanging sexy gchats while at work.

Using familial nicknames during sex such as “Mama,” “Papi,” or “Dirty Uncle Wally.”

Getting drunk with your girlfriend and her hot friend and talking until it gets really late and they’re getting kinda touchy with each other and you think, Whoa, maybe I’ll finally get to have a threesome, but no, her friend just goes home.

Texting “You up?” or “Hey, you wanna hang out?” to anyone of the opposite gender after 2 AM.

Having heterosexual, missionary-style, no-oral intercourse with your wife that is 100 percent procreative—as in, you want kids and even keep track of her ovulation cycles so you’ll know when she’s most fertile or whatever—but you invite your neighbor over to watch the two of you and masturbate.

Looking down when you’re at the urinal.

It’s probably unconstitutional to ban sexy gchats or situations where you maybe had a shot at a threesome but you blew it, you dumb idiot. But I would have said that it’s unconstitutional for US marshals to seize voice recorders from reporters recording a public speech—and Scalia is already 100 percent cool with that. So if anyone gets the chance, please ask him if he’s cool with those sex acts on my behalf. Especially the elf maiden thing.

@HCheadle