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Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop
The gay rights movement certainly had its share of people who -- fairly -- accused the broader society of homophobia in a way that was not politically popular and turned off many people. You can only say there was a tight, coherent argument and a shrewd strategy by ignoring all of the other messy, incoherent, unshrewd stuff, of which there was a lot. Post hoc ergo propter hoc. When you talk about gay rights, you see it as a legal strategy, and don't really have a story of how hearts and minds were changed. (Hard to fault you for this, because it has been a stunning change over a short period of time, and I'm not sure anyone really predicted it or has explained it well.) With the lessons you draw from gay rights, it seems like you should be concluding that the battle for racial and gender equality is basically won, since post-Brown the Fourteenth Amendment has been understand in a way even stronger than what gays have won. Since that obviously isn't true, maybe you ought to think a little harder about what you've been saying.
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The gay rights movement succeeded in getting laws on the books. The architect of their SCOTUS argument, Ted Olson, had a personal conversion on the issue, but ultimately delivered a very logical explanation of why they have the right to marry.
Was there an underlying hearts and minds movement? Yes. But what amount of credit does it deserve in comparison to the legal and legislative strategy? Given the short time table from the movement's gaining initial traction to the SCOTUS ruling, I can't agree that it was the biggest factor. But yes -- it was most certainly an essential thing at the beginning.
Justice reform needs to succeed in putting laws on the books. I thought the dam burst opening with the coke/crack sentencing disparity repeal, and Booker and Paul's initiative, and then Ferguson. But then it just fizzled. It was lost in a flurry of murders and acquittals and raw understandable anger, countered with racism.
It's fine to have angry community reactions. How could these things not occur? But where's the legislative initiative? Where's the unified, organized movement? There needs to be a conflict like Prop 8 that focuses all of the nation's attention on the issue. I don't see that happening right now. The heat and anger is dissipated and splintered. And I think that's a situation the opponents of sentencing reform seek to perpetuate.
