Hysterical predictions aside, Kevin Drum notes that the initiative to overturn the pro-gay-marriage ruling of the California Courts is trailing by nine points (see Harold's take here). I don't want to be complacent -- things can change -- but it is very likely that Prop 8 will fail, and California's same-sex marriages will be entrenched. Alas, I fear that Kevin is excessively optimistic when he says that "gay marriage will have been approved by the courts, the governor, the legislature, and the public. There's no way anyone will be able to complain that it's anything but completely legitimate." As far is I can tell, many of the people obsessed with "backlash" have no coherent democratic theory except that any social change that makes them or any significant number of people uncomfortable is ipso facto illegitimate.
In other backlash news, Massachusetts state legislators, who last year were were so outraged about judicial usurpation that almost 25% of them voted to throw the question of gay marriage to a referendum, voted this week to repeal "a 1913 law that prevents Massachusetts from marrying out-of-state couples if their marriages would not be legal in their home states." Fittingly enough, the law had its roots in white supremacy and was exhumed in pursuit of similarly bigoted purposes by Mitt Romney. It richly deserves its place in the dustbin of history.
--Scott Lemieux
