In 2006, upon leaving church, Scalia was asked by a reporter whether being a traditionalist Catholic had caused problems for him, and he responded by asking, "You know what I say to those people?" and with a gesture, cupping his hand under his chin and flicking his fingers out. The gesture, which got captured by a photographer, was initially reported by the Boston Herald as obscene. Scalia responded to the reports with a letter to the editor, accusing the news staff of watching too many episodes of The Sopranos and stating that the gesture was a strong brush-off. Roger Axtell, an expert on body language, described the gesture as possibly meaning "I've had enough, go away" and noted, "It's a fairly strong gesture". The gesture was parodied by comedian Stephen Colbert during his performance at the White House Correspondents' Association Dinner later that year, with the justice in attendance; cameras showed that unlike most of the butts of Colbert's jokes that evening, Scalia was laughing.
