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While selling his book at Princeton University earlier this week, Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia defended moral opposition to gay marriage by asking, “If we cannot have moral feelings against homosexuality, can we have it against murder?" According to the Associated Press, Mr. Scalia said he wasn't equating murder and homosexuality but rather making a logical argument entitled "reduction to the absurd," but Council Speaker Christine Quinn, an openly gay candidate for mayor next year, wasn't remotely satisfied with his explanation.

"It's offensive!" Ms. Quinn exclaimed on Hardball yesterday evening. "Sexual orientation is who we are as people, it's how we're created if we're the LGBT [community]. To compare that--even in a way you want to say was some philosophical exercise--to a heinous, horrible crime of murder? It's just wrong. He can say it's a slip of the tongue and that's fine and we all of them; God knows I have. Just apologize. But don't compare me to a murderer because I'm a lesbian. Just don't do it. It's wrong."

Mr. Scalia’s comments come as the Supreme Court is poised to hear two cases on gay marriage. There are concerns among LGBT activists of how the court, with its conservative faction headed by Mr. Scalia, will ultimately rule. Nevertheless, Ms. Quinn was optimistic about the outcome of the decision even as she criticized Mr. Scalia's remark.

"He wasn't teaching a law class there, he was  making a point, I believe, about what he actually thinks," she argued. "The job of the Supreme Court when they're going to take up this very important matter isn't what they personally think about LGBT people, it is what the Constitution sets out as a framework for protecting the rights of Americans. That's the question here and I believe the Supreme Court is going to rise to that occasion, as they have before, and look at those important issues. And really, the justice should apologize for what he said there."

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