Professor Deborah Rhode weighs in on the impact of comments made during arguments by Supreme Court Justices for The San Francisco Chronicle.

A lawyer for same-sex couples had just finished her opening arguments to the U.S. Supreme Court in Tuesday’s hearing on marriage when a spectator began shouting, “If you support gay marriage, you will burn in hell! It’s an abomination!” The bellowing continued as guards hauled the man away, and the podium fell silent as Chief Justice John Roberts took a brief timeout before calling on the next attorney.

Then Justice Antonin Scalia spoke up. “It was rather refreshing, actually,” he said. His tone sounded jovial, and laughter could be heard in the courtroom. Less audible was the shock among many supporters of same-sex marriage and those unaccustomed to hearing a robed authority appear to endorse a disruptive partisan.

…

It was “a gratuitous comment that could be heard to legitimize an offensive outburst,” said Deborah Rhode, a Stanford law professor who teaches legal ethics. While judges often reveal their viewpoints when questioning lawyers, she said, a remark like Scalia’s tends to “diminish popular perceptions of the justices as disinterested neutral observers.”