The late Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia argued that because courts are not elected representative bodies, they have no business determining certain cr4itical social issues. He wrote:
Judges are selected precisely for their skill as lawyers; whether they reflect the policy views of a particular constituency is not (or should not be) relevant. Not surprisingly then, the Federal Judiciary is hardly a cross-section of America. Take, for example, this Court, which consists of only nine men and women, all of them successful lawyers who studied at Harvard or Yale Law School. Four if the nine are natives of New York City. Eight of them grew up in east-and west-coast States. Only one hails from the vast expanse in-between. Not a single South-westerner or even, to tell the truth, a genuine Westerner (California does not count.) Not a single evangelical Christian (a group that comprises about one quarter of Americans), or even a Protestant of any denomination. To allow [an important social issue] to be considered and resolved by a select, patrician, highly unrepresentative panel of nine is to violate a principle even more fundamental than no taxation without representation: no social transformation without representation. Do you agree?
