United Press International – NewsTrack – Justice Scalia flips the finger in church
BOSTON, March 27 (UPI) — U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia startled reporters in Boston just minutes after attending a mass, by flipping a middle finger to his critics.
A Boston Herald reporter asked the 70-year-old conservative Roman Catholic if he faces much questioning over impartiality when it comes to issues separating church and state.
“You know what I say to those people?” Scalia replied, making the obscene gesture and explaining “That’s Sicilian.”
The 20-year veteran of the high court was caught making the gesture by a photographer with The Pilot, the Archdiocese of Boston’s newspaper.
“Don’t publish that,” Scalia told the photographer, the Herald said.
He was attending a special mass for lawyers and politicians at Cathedral of the Holy Cross, and afterward was the keynote speaker at the Catholic Lawyers’ Guild luncheon.
Yup. Pretty much sums up what Scalia, the Bush administration, and the right-wingers think of most of America, doesn’t it?
Had to add this quote from the comments over at Water tiger’s place:
As my father used to point out when notable Sicilians behaved badly, “That’s why God put the Sicilians on an island under the boot–away from the rest of Italy.” — Ruthie
Thanks for the laugh, Ruthie!
7 Responses
This so reminds me of the scene in The Princess Bride when Vizzini says “Never mess with a Sicilian when death is on the line!” He then laughs wickedly, and keels over dead (dead-dead, not just mostly dead.) It has to be one of the funniest moments in film history.
I love The Princess Bride! We used to watch that movie with the kids all the time. They loved that scene.
Arg – great, horrible anecdote and not at all surprising. What a bunch of thugs.
OK, that quote about Sicilians is hilarious … Thanks for coming back by my blog, your comments were brave and beautiful and I wanted to say thank you for sharing them, there is so much power in saying “I need help” and I’m glad you shared in that power and that things are good now. I’ll be back soon, HB
Turns out he didn’t flip the finger, he used an Italian gesture of flicking his fingers under his chin. Someone on my blog linked to the story.
Huh? Either gesture is unacceptable, and the question sounds reasonable to me. Am I hopelessly old-fashioned in wondering what has happened to propriety? Imagine Justice Brandeis or O’Connor or any of the rest doing such a thing. It would never happen.
Ronni, I completely agree with you. But, then, I also think Scalia is a horse’s ass.