Justice Antonin Scalia dies at age 79

Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia was found dead today from natural causes at a West Texas resort. He was 79.

Scalia died after attending a private party at a ranch in the Big Bend area of Texas. His death was discovered after he did not come to breakfast, MySanAntonio.com reported.

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott released a statement confirming Scalia’s death and praising his staunch defense of the Constitution. “Justice Antonin Scalia was a man of God, a patriot, and an unwavering defender of the written Constitution and the rule of law,” Abbott said.

President Ronald Reagan nominated Scalia to the Supreme Court in 1986. He became the court’s most outspoken conservative during his 30-year tenure. An advocate for interpreting the Constitution according to the Founding Fathers’ original intent, Scalia often wrote separate, scathing opinions when he dissented from the majority.

In the case of Obergefell v. Hodges, in which the Supreme Court ruled that laws defining marriage as between a man and a woman violated the Constitution, Scalia scolded the court for presuming to overturn an institution that had been established since the dawn of society.

“It is one thing for a society to elect change; it is another for a court of law to impose change by adjudging those who oppose it hostes humani generis, enemies of the human race,” he wrote.

Scalia, a Roman Catholic, was a graduate of Georgetown University and Harvard Law School. He married Maureen McCarthy in 1960, and they had nine children.