(no subject)
I really hate to let my cynicism get the best of me, but I am very slightly worried about a downside to the recent acceleration of the shift in favor of gay marriage. It makes it easier for conservative members of the court to justify an argument of the form "It's unfair, but we're going to defer to the legislature, because as conservatives that's what we do [except when we don't]. After all, public opinion shifts means that you can deal with it legislatively, right?"
Except that our legislature is deeply broken. We've got many checks and balances in the system, to protect the minority, but taken as a group and combined with a bias to inaction, it means that a fairly small minority can block almost anything. A change has to jump through many, many hoops: a majority in the House, a super-majority in the Senate, surviving a veto threat from the President, and then again surviving the Supreme Court. The only way to achieve anything involves trumping all of those at once.
Despite a recent poll showing 58% approval for same-sex marriage, there's no way that translates into 60% of Senators voting to overturn DOMA. Not today, not a decade from now. Maybe two decades from now. And justice delayed is justice denied.
Except that our legislature is deeply broken. We've got many checks and balances in the system, to protect the minority, but taken as a group and combined with a bias to inaction, it means that a fairly small minority can block almost anything. A change has to jump through many, many hoops: a majority in the House, a super-majority in the Senate, surviving a veto threat from the President, and then again surviving the Supreme Court. The only way to achieve anything involves trumping all of those at once.
Despite a recent poll showing 58% approval for same-sex marriage, there's no way that translates into 60% of Senators voting to overturn DOMA. Not today, not a decade from now. Maybe two decades from now. And justice delayed is justice denied.