Jeffrey Rosen writes in today’s New York Times Magazine that Lawrence v. Texas has emboldened social conservatives, and that this is not surprising. Indeed, when advocates for social change rely on the courts to effect change, they run the risk of a backlash. I sure wouldn’t want to be a member of the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts right now, having to decide that state’s gay marriage case. Whatever the outcome of that case, lots of people are sure to get angry, and a pro-gay-marriage decision might hurt the cause in the rest of the nation by emboldening those who support an anti-gay-marriage amendment to the Constitution. I think this is why, a month and a half past the court’s self-imposed deadline, it still has not issued a decision.
One of my old law professors agrees with the theory that courts are not the best vehicle for social change. He says that Brown v. Board of Education, for example, emboldened social conservatives; 10 years after the decision, a vast majority of Southern schools remained segregated. It wasn’t until Congress passed the Civil Rights Act of 1964 that society became more racially integrated, and that was only because of revulsion against the tactics of Southern racists, epitomized by Bull Connor; and the ratcheting up of violent racist actions in the South, my professor contends, was a backlash against events such as Brown. So in a way, the Civil Rights Act was a backlash against a backlash.
Maybe social change is just backlash versus backlash — in which case, no social revolution is ever complete. Human beings are notoriously fickle and easily frightened. The clock can always turn back again.
Spot-on post. That’s why, whenever people imply to me their sense of inevitable, if slow, human progress, I try not to scream. I’m usually successful…
However, I’d rather Lawrence have happened than not.
hmmm. this is a troubling way of thinking – that somehow there were no advances in the of civil rights from Brown until the 1964 Civil Rights Act. (I realize that’s not what you said, you said society did not become more racially integrated) BUT do you think the ’64 Act would’ve happend without Brown and the other court cases that the NAACP worked on from the early 1940’s on? I think the mistake is to forget that court decisions, legislative victories, street demos and agitation all work together – that each feeds on the others. How many Blacks were inspired by the victories at the Supreme court to get involved, to push for their rights, for example? Look at Clinton’s failed attempt to change the Armed Forces “no gays” policy? Right now it’s in a terrbly unworkable situation, and more and more people, including military folks, are questioning DONT ASK DONT TELL and advocating eliiminating it. Did Clinton “fix” the problem – NO. But social change doesnt happen at the stroke of a pen, or overnight – but his failed attempt IS part of the movement towards ending that policy.