Word: consensus
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Every June is gay-pride month, but this one ended with a Supreme Court decision that--according to a suspiciously broad consensus among media elites--is supposed to make lesbians and gays prouder than ever. "A historic legal victory," declared the Los Angeles Times; a SWEEPING REVERSAL, gushed the New York Times in a banner headline, the kind the paper uses when...
...court legitimized and endorsed a cultural consensus," says Paul Gewirtz, a professor of constitutional law at Yale University. That consensus walks a socially sensible but legally clumsy line between tolerance and outright acceptance. Scalia noted that many Americans might not be comfortable with an openly gay business partner, scoutmaster, schoolteacher or boarder. True enough, but most people would also say that what Tyron Garner and John G. Lawrence did in the privacy of their Texas bedroom is none of our business. The court's affirmative-action decision was just as pragmatic. Most Americans disapprove of specific, codified racial preferences, like...
...behind them--was more critical than the case of Bush v. Gore. At the end of five tense postelection weeks, the court issued an unsigned 5-4 opinion that stopped the recounting in Florida, throwing the election to Bush. Rehnquist worked intently behind the scenes to assemble a majority consensus. The underpinning of that decision--an equal-protection argument that would normally be anathema to conservatives--was described even by many Republican lawyers as being weak and unsustainable as a precedent...
...court legitimized and endorsed a cultural consensus," says Paul Gewirtz, a professor of constitutional law at Yale University. That consensus walks a socially sensible but legally clumsy line between tolerance and outright acceptance. Scalia noted that many Americans might not be comfortable with an openly gay business partner, scoutmaster, schoolteacher or boarder. True enough, but most people would also say that what Tyron Garner and John G. Lawrence did in the privacy of their Texas bedroom is none of our business. The court's affirmative-action decision was just as pragmatic. Most Americans disapprove of specific, codified racial preferences, like...
...There is also a consensus on abortion: tolerable during the first few months of pregnancy but with severe limits after that. In fact, the rationale for Roe v. Wade-the right to privacy-was cited in the gay-rights decision. That the court's controversial abortion decision is now being used as a template for privacy cases is remarkable. It means that Roe is probably settled for the foreseeable future...