Kagan praises Scalia for reading of law

U.S. Supreme Court Associate Justices Elena Kagan and Clarence Thomas pose for photographs in the East Conference Room at the Supreme Court building October 8, 2010 in Washington, D.C. / Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

WASHINGTON Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan says her colleague Antonin Scalia deserves a lot of credit for getting the high court to divine what laws mean by focusing on the words Congress used.

Kagan says the art of interpreting statutes has changed for the better in the past 30 years, largely because of Scalia.

The liberal Kagan says the conservative Scalia will go down in history for his insistence that justices look more to the words of a law than they used to.

Kagan spoke Thursday night at a downtown Washington synagogue.

Scalia has come under criticism for comments he made this week at Kagan's alma mater, Princeton University, in which he compared laws against homosexuality to those dealing with murder and bestiality.

During the Princeton event Scalia told a gay student that he wasn't equating sodomy with murder but drawing parallels between bans on both.

"It's a form of argument that I thought you would have known, which is called the 'reduction to the absurd,'" Scalia said. "If we cannot have moral feelings against homosexuality, can we have it against murder? Can we have it against other things?"

• Scalia draws parallels between bans on sodomy, murder

[MerrellOBrian64]

The minority of straight people are never going to "validate" my gay marriage. You know what? The Bible they use to condemn me doesn't allow for divorce and states that if they "divorce" and remarry they're committing adultry, which, according to the same scriptures they use against me means, they should be stoned to death. So, all you haters, go grab a rock and bang your head with it while I watch. I mean it in the most non-sexual way possible: Screw you. I don't care what you believe or think.
Small-minded hypocricy and religious games are meaningless to me. Loveless and cheating "marriages" are equally invalid to me. However, one thing is clear: So long as 'they' continue to get benefits from a civil relationship and 'I' can't, that's discrimination and I'll NEVER stop fighting for Equality. Luckily, very soon, I'll have it, as will all of America. And don't give me that "special rights" crap! When I get something you don't, THEN, it's special rights.