For the historical record, because I want to lay claim to this idea, a Facebook post…
Serious question time. Would Antonin Scalia’s written decisions in the Prop 8 case and the DOMA case be eligible for the Hugo and Nebula Awards? These decisions will be so divorced from reality that they would be fantasy fiction, after all. And there would be a lot of worldbuilding in these decisions as Scalia tries to communicate to the world what’s inside his mind. So could the science fiction community vote to put these on the ballot for their major awards? Could the science fiction community say, “Hey, here’s what we think of your so-called ‘decision’ — it’s such a piece of fantasy that we couldn’t not nominate it so we could mock it”? These are thing things I wonder…
Yes, I would feel bad for the serious novelist whose work was left off the ballot so that Scalia’s decision could be remembered forever as a Nebula Award nominee. But at the same time, Scalia’s decision would be remembered forever as a Nebula Award nominee.