Winning and Losing at the Same Time

This William Stuntz column is boring and WAY too long, but the point he makes about abortion (Roe v. Wade was a disaster for pro-choice forces) is a plausible one that Alan Dershowitz has been making for years. Of course, Stuntz's conclusion is wrong: there will never be an alliance between campus intellectuals and the Christian right any more than there will be an alliance between Bush and Chirac. The correct conclusion is simply that activists for gay rights, as they reassess strategies after the election, should not proceed down the judicial path before proceeding down the political one. Even when you get what you want from the courts, it just makes you complacent and your enemies mad as hell.