Box Turtle Bulletin

Segregationists already wrote the conservative response to the Supreme Court

If justice prevails, the Supreme Court will establish marriage equality throughout the country before summer is out. Conservatives will have to respond quickly, but also carefully, especially if they’ve declared their intention to run for president. Luckily, the job’s already been done for them.

Back in 1956, 101 segregationists in Congress protested the Brown v. Board of Education Supreme Court ruling, which integrated public schools, by issuing the Southern Manifesto. All we need to do is change a few words of that manifesto, and the exact principles used to protest the end of racist education can also protest the advent of same-sex marriage nationwide.

Here’s the (adjusted) text:

The unwarranted decision of the Supreme Court in the public school marriage cases is now bearing the fruit always produced when men substitute naked power for established law.

The Founding Fathers gave us a Constitution of checks and balances because they realized the inescapable lesson of history that no man or group of men can be safely entrusted with unlimited power. They framed this Constitution with its provisions for change by amendment in order to secure the fundamentals of government against the dangers of temporary popular passion or the personal predilections of public officeholders.

We regard the decisions of the Supreme Court in the school marriage cases as a clear abuse of judicial power. It climaxes a trend in the Federal Judiciary undertaking to legislate, in derogation of the authority of Congress, and to encroach upon the reserved rights of the States and the people.

The original Constitution does not mention education marriage. Neither does the 14th Amendment nor any other amendment. The debates preceding the submission of the 14th Amendment clearly show that there was no intent that it should affect the system of education marriage maintained by the States.

This is not a joke. Or a poe. This is a real thing. Those segregationists managed to anticipate the very same Constitutional arguments our opponents are pushing today.

Power-mad judges and justices are legislating from the bench? Check!

This ought to be decided by the states? Check!

The Constitution doesn’t mention the matter? Check!

The 14th Amendment never intended such an interpretation? Check!

They even managed to work in the argument from tradition:

Though there has been no constitutional amendment or act of Congress changing this established legal principle almost a century 3000 years old [or 6000 years, or even more, if you’re not a young-earth creationist], the Supreme Court of the United States, with no legal basis for such action, undertook to exercise their naked judicial power and substituted their personal political and social ideas for the established law of the land.

Opponents of marriage equality have already set themselves up to use this statement by issuing an amici curiae brief to the Supreme Court, signed by six Senators and 51 representatives. Let’s reverse what we did above and see how easy it be to turn quotes from that recent brief into statements that would fit right into the Southern Manifesto.

State democratic processes, not federal courts, are the fundamental incubators of change in public policy and social structure.

Redefining marriage to include same-sex relationships Ending segregation in schools does not fall within the “clear and central purpose” of any express constitutional provision…

[R]edefining the institution of marriage to encompass same-sex couples Abolishing segregated schools cannot be viewed as falling within the “central meaning” or the “clear and central purpose” of the Fourteenth Amendment…

[T]here has been a long tradition favoring the traditional definition of marriage segregated schools, which has been reaffirmed in democratic enactments adopted by a majority of States…

See? The translation works both ways. You can go from the Southern Manifesto to the amici curiae and back again.

Of course, our opposition would never identify with segregationists or admit to wanting to take away our rights, whether it’s marriage or employment or hospital visitation. No, they’re simply trying to keep their states safe while outside mediators are threatening immediate and revolutionary changes — sorry, that last bit was from the Manifesto.

Rather, let’s say they’re protecting tradition from “people wear their sexuality on their sleeve” (in the words of Rep. Steve King, who signed the Supreme Court brief and lists his sexual partner on his government web page). Everything would be fine if homogays just stayed quietly in the closet. This all the fault of uppity outsiders who want to wreck a system that’s been working just fine. Or, as the segregationists said:

This unwarranted exercise of power by the Court, contrary to the Constitution, is creating chaos and confusion in the States principally affected. It is destroying the amicable relations between the white and Negro races that have been created through 90 years of patient effort by the good people of both races. It has planted hatred and suspicion where there has been heretofore friendship and understanding.

And with arguments like that, how could you possibly want change?