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'A thing of Sound and Fury, signifying nothing.'
 

 

The Trouble with Democracy (2/28/04)

     Recently President Bush has expressed his support for a Constitutional amendment that would make marriage between gay partners illegal throughout the US. He justified this position by claiming (correctly) that the majority of Americans are opposed to gay marriage (by about two to one.)

     Is this a compelling argument? I think it's not, because I don't believe carrying out the will of the majority is the point of democracy. If we believe that democracy means the majority getting what they want, then we invite modern forms of witch hunts and lynchings, which no matter how barbaric they may have been, were indeed populist.

     Indeed, not only is the will of the majority an unreliable safeguard against atrocities...it's an unreliable path to a more just and enlightened society. Bush may rail against 'activist courts', but such activism can be credited with giving us many of our rights. Among the long list of acts of "judicial activism" we find the ending of segregation in the South, the right to birth control, and an almost endless litany of cases where free speech and the separation of church and state have been defended against democratically passed laws that sought to limit them.

     When Abraham Lincoln declared an end to slavery with the Emancipation Proclamation, not only did he not have the backing of the majority of Americans, he didn't even ask for Congresses' approval.

    Am I against democracy? No indeed, but I do reject the idea that carrying out the will of the people is the highest ideal of democracy. Rather, the highest democratic ideal is the equality of all people. Democracy as majority rule endorsed slavery 200 years ago; democracy interpreted as equal rights for everybody did not.

    So no, I am not troubled in the least when the courts seek to give everybody the same rights over the objections of the majority. These 'activist judges' are the guardians of democracy's true highest principle: That all people should be equal before the law.