I’ve never quoted Richard M. Nixon before, but there’s a first time for everything. In 1962, two years after Nixon lost the presidential election to John F. Kennedy by the thinnest of margins, he told Life magazine: “You must never be satisfied with losing. You must get angry, terribly angry, about losing.” So far, that was the Nixon we knew, not yet our president or a Watergate criminal but famously rageful. He continued on, however, with uncharacteristic generosity and civility: “But the mark of the good loser is that he takes his anger out on himself and on not his victorious opponents or on his teammates.”
I couldn’t help but think of Nixon’s words when I read the vehement — even venomous — dissent to Friday’s Supreme Court ruling on same-sex marriage. It had me wishing that Chief Justice John G. Roberts and Justice Antonin Scalia had taken a page from Nixon or even GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump, who tweeted last year: “What separates the winners from the losers is how a person reacts to each new twist of fate.”
Which is to say: How you respond to losing is a true measure of one’s character.
Scalia, certainly not known for his moderation, went even further than he often does, describing the ruling, incredulously, as “lacking even a thin veneer of law.” He wrote, “The opinion is couched in a style that is as pretentious as its content is egotistic,” adding: “Of course the opinion’s showy profundities are often profoundly incoherent.”
[Supreme Court rules gay couples nationwide have a right to marry]
Oh my, Mr. Justice. How many times have I dispensed advice about the art of civil disagreement, especially to young people who need role models: Don’t make it personal. Avoid put-downs. And, above all, stay calm.
Then there was Roberts’s dissent. The usually consensus-driven chief justice openly challenged the validity of the decision by asking, “Who do we think we are?” In an unprecedented move, Roberts read his 29-page dissent out loud “from the bench to signal his strong disagreement with the court’s 5-to-4 decision,” as my colleague Amber Phillips reported. Toward the end of his dissent, Roberts, now playing the role of the quintessential sore loser, jettisoned the middle way:
“If you are among the many Americans — of whatever sexual orientation — who favor expanding same-sex marriage, by all means celebrate today’s decision. Celebrate the achievement of a desired goal. Celebrate the opportunity for a new expression of commitment to a partner. Celebrate the availability of new benefits. But do not celebrate the Constitution. It had nothing to do with it.”
This bears repeating: “Do not celebrate the Constitution. It had nothing to do with it.” When a sore loser loses a game, he calls foul on the game itself.
On the contrary, it was the Constitution that inspired Justice Anthony Kennedy’s majority opinion. He spoke directly about the motivations of the Americans who want to marry their same-sex partners and the rights they are due under U.S. law.
“It would misunderstand these men and women to say they disrespect the idea of marriage,” Kennedy wrote. “Their plea is that they do respect it, respect it so deeply that they seek to find its fulfillment for themselves. Their hope is not to be condemned to live in loneliness, excluded from one of civilization’s oldest institutions. They ask for equal dignity in the eyes of the law. The Constitution grants them that right.”
In the past, Roberts has said that any chief justice has the obligation “to try to achieve consensus.” Obviously, not Friday. Obviously, not with this decision. Obviously, not with the issue of marriage equality for same-sex couples. With his dissent, Roberts seems to have abandoned his own rules of decorum.
Roberts and Scalia are sore losers. Just ask Nixon or Trump. Or the Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee, commenting on the South’s defeat in the Civil War:
“We have fought this fight as long and as well as we know how. We have been defeated. For us as a Christian people, there is now but one course to pursue. We must accept the situation.”
What’s your take on the Supreme Court’s decision on marriage equality? Let me know in the comments section below.
E-mail questions to stevenpetrow@earthlink.net. Follow him on Twitter: @stevenpetrow. Join hime for a chat with Jim Obergerfell on June 29 at 12 p.m. at live.washingtonpost.com.
