Andrew Sullivan flags some eye-popping responses from religious conservatives regarding New York's decision to pass marriage equality legislation. Here's Kathryn Jean-Lopez:
Are the fears of our founding fathers mere fantasy, or is care for legal protection against the tyranny of the majority an actual real-world concern? Is the vote of a democratically elected body necessarily not tyranny? To dismiss the N. Korea analogy as beyond the pale is to deny the rational of the founding fathers, to deny any appeals to right and wrong that extend beyond positive law. Tyranny is capricious law, based upon the will of one, few, or many in a way that gravely contradicts the common good and the traditional laws for securing that good.
And here's George Weigel:
The gay-marriage movement is thus not the heir of the civil-rights movement; it is the heir of Bull Connor and others who tried to impose their false idea of moral reality on others by coercive state power.
This sort of moral inversion is really common throughout history at times when the rights of minorities are expanded, which those opposed cast as an infringement upon their rights. States seceding from the Union over the right to own black people as property did so in the name of fighting tyranny, waving the Gadsden flag as proudly as any modern-day Tea Partyer. So does the extension of same-sex marriage rights to gays and lesbians become "coercive state power" akin to Bull Connor siccing dogs and spraying firehoses at civil rights activists. That these arguments are actually deployed in service to "coercive state power," whether it be legalized slavery or state prohibition on recognizing relationships between consenting adults, is precisely the point.
Jean-Lopez's definition of "tyranny" is particularly edifying. It's certainly true that legislatures can pass laws that infringe on individual rights, but opponents of same-sex marriage can make no argument that the ability of others to marry the person of their choosing affects their right to get married or their right to continue believing that same-sex marriage is wrong in a way that justifies the state banning same-sex marriage.
So instead tyranny simply becomes the passage of laws that "contradict the common good," as defined by Kathryn Jean-Lopez. But of course she bears no ill-will towards the imposition of such laws onto the few by the many, as long as such laws are consistent with her own views. Where democracy "fails" in the sense that her preferred result is not achieved, the will of the one or the few--in this case the dwindling minority in favor of interfering with the individual rights of same-sex couples--does not provoke objection.
Tyranny is thus redefined, not as mob rule or even the use of the state to enforce the views of the minority upon the populace, but as "stuff I don't like." Jean-Lopez seeks not an antidote for tyranny--tyranny is the objective. The disease she wishes to cure is democracy, which is what makes her analogy to North Korea all the more pathetic.
I might add however, that abandoning democracy in service to the whims of those who wish to preserve "civilization" is something of a tradition at National Review:
National Review believes that the South's premises are correct. If the majority wills what is socially atavistic, then to thwart the majority may be, though undemocratic, enlightened. It is more important for any community, anywhere in the world, to affirm and live by civilized standards, than to bow to the demands of the numerical majority. Sometimes it becomes impossible to assert the will of a minority, in which case it must give way, and the society will regress; sometimes the numberical minority cannot prevail except by violence: then it must determine whether the prevalence of its will is worth the terrible price of violence.
Let us recognize Weigel and Jean-Lopez for what they are--merely "enlightened" defenders of civilization, just like William F. Buckley during the early years of the Civil Rights Movement. Forgive me if I don't consider it tragic that not everyone at the magazine seems determined to uphold this august tradition.