U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia discussed religion and government during a speech at Colorado Christian University on Wednesday.
Scalia spoke to more than 400 people — including state officials and lawmakers — during a lunch to mark the university’s 100-year anniversary.
“No principle of democracy is more fundamental than what has become known as the separation of church and state,” Scalia said.
The conservative justice lamented about the need for a balance in the separation of church and state. But he also criticized what he said was a growing effort to quash religion in politics and stressed the importance of religious freedom.
“There are those who would have us believe that the separation of church and state must mean that God must be driven out of the public forum,” Scalia said. “That is simply not what our Constitution has ever meant.”
But Scalia also warned that a religious preoccupation with the government “will destroy the church.”
The justice’s comments were met with several standing ovations from the crowd.
His playful responses to a handful of questions from the audience also roused laughter. In response to one question about the pressure he is under, Scalia joked that he doesn’t feel any.
“What can they do to me?” Scalia said. “It’s even better than academic tenure — I get life tenure!”
The justice made no reference to any of the pending cases before the Supreme Court. The high court could announce this week which cases it will hear this term and whether it will consider the issue of same-sex marriage.
During his visit to the Lakewood campus, Scalia met with faculty and taught a class on constitutional and business law to undergraduate students.
Scalia traveled to Boulder on Wednesday afternoon. He was to give a lecture on the Constitution at the University of Colorado law school.
President Ronald Reagan appointed Scalia to the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia in 1982. Four years later, Reagan nominated Scalia to the Supreme Court.
Scalia is the longest-serving justice currently on the Supreme Court.
Jordan Steffen: 303-954-1794, jsteffen@denverpost.com or twitter.com/jsteffendp
