WASHINGTON – Justice Antonin Scalia today said that it was Satan, Lord of the Underworld, who was responsible for the July Supreme Court decision which declared the Defense of Marriage Act unconstitutional. Scalia—the longest-serving justice on the court and an ardent Catholic—said he “firmly believes” that the Devil “manipulated the liberal wing of the Court into doing his dark bidding” by overturning the controversial law.
Speaking to an interviewer with New York magazine, Scalia admitted that he “often thinks the Court is wrong in its decisions,” but said that the majority opinion in United States v. Windsor—which declared that the Fifth Amendment protects same-sex marriages from being treated differently than heterosexual ones—was “clearly more sinister.”
“I believe that the Devil visited with Justices Kennedy, Sotomayor, Ginsberg, Kagan and Breyer as they were pondering this issue,” Scalia said. “They probably don’t even realize it, but he worked his way into their minds and effectively turned them into robot-demons, programmed to attack traditional marriages sanctioned by God.”
“If you had looked them in the eyes, you would have seen the evil lurking within, as I did,” Scalia said.
This is not the first time Justice Scalia has professed a belief in Satan and insisted that he plays an active role in human affairs. In a New York interview published this week, Scalia said that the Devil “is a real person” who “used to be all over the place” but has gotten “wilier.”
“In the Gospels, the Devil is doing all sorts of things,” Scalia explained. “He’s making pigs run off cliffs, he’s possessing people and whatnot. And that doesn’t happen very much anymore… What he’s doing now is getting people not to believe in him or in God. He’s much more successful that way.”
Scalia, who blasted the DOMA decision in a vitriolic dissenting opinion, theorized that “destroying marriage was so important to Lucifer that he decided to try out possessions one more time.”
“I tried to exorcise the demons residing in my fellow justices’ souls, but I failed,” Scalia admitted. “I think my holy water may have been tainted. One of my interns accidentally used it to wash his hands after using the toilet.”
“I’m not sure if the Devil has entirely left them yet,” Scalia said, “but I certainly hope so.” In October, the Supreme Court will hear a case involving the practice of opening legislative sessions with prayers, and Scalia says he “fully expects Satan to make an appearance at those deliberations as well,” but that he will “do everything in [his] power to stop him.”