If top court swings right, liberals may benefit

The best thing that could happen to the Democratic Party is for the Supreme Court to reverse Roe v. Wade. Liberal judicial activism in general — and Roe in particular — is the biggest gift the Republican Party has ever gotten.

Because of Roe, three generations of Republican politicians have had the luxury of posturing about their opposition to legalized abortion, without ever having to pay the price for that opposition.

If Roe is reversed, abortion will be outlawed in some states — although in fewer than either anti-abortion or pro-choice activists imagine. But an almost certain side effect of such laws would be a massive backlash against the right wing of the Republican Party, led by moderate swing voters who were willing to vote Republican as long as the party's opposition to legalized abortion remained a matter of theory rather than practice.

A similar dynamic applies to other battlegrounds in the culture wars, such as school prayer. Millions of suburbanites are willing to vote for candidates who promise to cut their taxes and put God back into the schools — as long as only the first promise gets kept.

But if the Supreme Court swings far enough to the right to allow the Republican Party to enact the legislative program its platform claims to endorse, the fundamental split in the party between cultural conservatives and libertarians — roughly speaking between those who worship God and Mammon — would soon yawn wider than the Grand Canyon.

Nothing would appall the Bush administration more than the prospect of having to actually keep its promises to the 15 million voters who listed "moral values" as their main reason for re-electing the president.

Country club Republicans favor talk of "moral values" to exactly the extent such talk doesn't interfere with maximizing stock market values. Thus liberal judicial decisions that take contentious moral issues out of the legislative arena are a veritable godsend to those who profit (quite literally) from the support of cultural conservatives. Such decisions ensure this support doesn't need to be repaid with political actions that would alienate swing voters.

This is why progressives ought to be furious with the Massachusetts Supreme Court for legalizing gay marriage. That idiotic decision probably did more to ensure the re-election of George W. Bush than any other single factor in the 2004 presidential race.