With respect to public acknowledgment of religious belief, it is entirely clear from our nation’s historical practices that the Establishment Clause permits this disregard of polytheists and believers in unconcerned deities, just as it permits the disregard of devout atheists.
ANTONIN SCALIAThe principal purpose of stare decisis is to protect reliance interest and further stability in the law.
More Antonin Scalia Quotes
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In the eyes of government we are just one race here. It is American.
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The virtue of a democratic system with a [constitutionally guaranteed right to free speech] is that it readily enables the people, over time, to be persuaded that what they took for granted is not so, and to change their laws accordingly.
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Power tends to corrupt. But the power in Washington resides in Congress, if it wants to use it. It can do anything-it can stop the Vietnam War. It can make its will felt, if it can ever get its act together to do anything.
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The Constitution does not trust judges to make determinations of criminal guilt.
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The right of parents to direct the upbringing of their children is among the unalienable rights with which the Declaration of Independence proclaims ‘all Men are endowed by their Creator.’
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The principal purpose of stare decisis is to protect reliance interest and further stability in the law.
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A Bill of Rights that means what the majority wants it to mean is worthless.
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There is nothing new in the realization that the Constitution sometimes insulates the criminality of a few in order to protect the privacy of us all.
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What is a moderate interpretation of the text? Halfway between what it really means and what you’d like it to mean?
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But I also believe that a lot of gun owners would agree that AK-47s belong in the hands of soldiers, not on the streets of our cities.
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It would be gross understatement to say that the Telecommunications Act of 1996 is not a model of clarity. It is in many important respects a model of ambiguity or indeed even self-contradiction.
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Under all the usual rules of interpretation, in short, the Government should lose this case. But normal rules of interpretation seem always to yield to the overriding principle of the present Court: The Affordable Care Act must be saved.
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The purpose of the Federalist Society was to bring together young people who had this skepticism about what they were being taught and to let them know that there were others who shared this skepticism.
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On this day, when we’re celebrating our constitutional heritage, I urge you to be faithful to that heritage – to impose on our fellow citizens only the restrictions that are there in the Constitution, not invent new ones, not to invent the right because it’s a good idea.
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In a big family the first child is kind of like the first pancake. If it’s not perfect, that’s okay, there are a lot more coming along.
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