Should Gay Marriage Advocates Be Wary of the Supreme Court?

Back in February Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg
delivered a speech at Columbia University where she criticized the
Court?s abortion rights-affirming 1973 decision in Roe v.
Wade because ?it moved too far too fast? and provoked decades
of bitter political fighting. ?It?s not that the judgment was
wrong,? Ginsburg said, it was that the country wasn?t quite ready
to accept a decision legalizing abortion in all 50 states. ?Things
might have turned out differently if the court had been more
restrained,? she observed. As I
noted at the time, Ginsburg?s comments on Roe might
also apply to the issue of gay marriage, which the Supreme Court is
likely to take on sometime in the next few years. Should gay
marriage advocates try to postpone this looming Supreme Court fight
and focus instead on first winning more victories at the state
level?
At least one advocate of gay rights thinks so. Writing in
The Los Angeles Times, liberal Georgia State University
law professor Eric Segall
makes the case for keeping the Supreme Court out of the gay
marriage debate:

President Obama did the right thing last week by (finally)
coming out in favor of marriage equality for all people. Gays and
lesbians should have the same rights as heterosexuals to marry, and
the president's explicit support should further that goal. But if
the Supreme Court forces that change on the American people
(through litigation over California's Proposition 8 or other
cases), the probable backlash would be substantial and might well
do more damage than good to the future of gay rights and other
important causes.

I'm less convinced that a ruling in favor of gay marriage would
spark a sustained Roe-style backlash. But either way, the
board is set and the pieces are moving. A Supreme Court showdown
over gay marriage seems increasingly inevitable.

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