On The Corner, Ramesh Ponnuru rebuts Barney Frank’s effort yesterday to justify his “homophobe” epithet against Justice Scalia. Frank evidently doesn’t understand that the role of a justice, when addressing a constitutional claim, is to determine whether the challenged law is constitutionally permissible, not whether it’s good policy.

Update: I should add that Barney Frank explains that he uses the term “homophobe” to mean “someone who has prejudice about gay people.” I think that for those alleging such prejudice or bias the term “anti-gay” (or “anti-homosexual”) is much better than “homophobe” (as it doesn’t allege a supposed psychological disorder), and I continue to believe that the term “homophobe” has no place in public discourse. Frank also explains that he doesn’t believe that opposition to same-sex marriage necessarily indicates homophobia. Given his clarification, I withdraw the second point of dispute in my original post.