Obergefell and the Call for Law School

Because I eat, breathe, sleep, shit, and fuck the law like any good lawyer should, I spent large chunks of this past weekend skimming through remarkably cogent, spirited, and well-thought commentary on the Supreme Court's decision in Obergefell v. Hodges (for those who read USA Today, that's the gay marriage case), and I must ask:  who would not want to go to law school right now?

I'll sidestep the political minefield of discussing the politics or legal issues.  Lord knows if you write something like "I fully support liberalizing marriage, but what the fuck is this?" you're actually a hateful bigot who secretly hangs out in arcades with the other kind of joystick.

But I will observe that whether you like the ruling or not, look at how awesome lawyers are!  While your thoughts are still on the sodomy images invoked by the last paragraph, consider that twenty-nine years ago, the Supreme Court decided that it was totally constitutional for states to criminalize gay sex.  Now, nine new members of the Supreme Court decided that, actually, the states must allow homosexuals equality under state marriage laws.  Without a relevant amendment, we've gone from permissive persecution of godless perverts to mandatory state endorsement of that valued minority's most crucial relationships in less than 30 years.  Same Constitution, great new taste.

It wasn't voters whose flip-flopping mattered.  It was lawyers'.  Us.  We, who all took oaths to uphold the Constitution, can rewrite it to condemn and then - poof - rewrite it to sanctify and scold the condemners.

If you're a gun-toting, mother-loving red-stater who dreads getting dragged to Cousin Jimmy's fabulous wedding to a dude, there's really only one solution, and it isn't to drink twice as much organic small batch liquor made into novelty Jimmytinis.

Don't bitch about the strict Constitution - what do you think this is, 1960?

Don't make up pseudoscience about the "queers" not being able to rear children properly.

Don't blabber about marriage being sacred - see how Mr. Wizard Anthony Kennedy turned that utter piffle against you?

Go to law school.

This is the game.  Of course, it's not new - Scalia's whinging about democracy seems a bit untoward for a member of the Bush v. Gore majority.  And we could talk about Hobby Lobby and Citizen's United (who doesn't want to talk about those cases?!  are you not wet, hard, and/or miscellaneous right now?).  Hell, we could trace the whole privacy case line back to Griswold's "uncommonly silly law" and ask anew what the fuck this "privacy" shit is, exactly.  

The point is simple.  If you don't like the law, you don't have to change it.  You just need the right constitutional framework and five justices who buy it.  That doesn't take money or popular will.  It takes an army of constitutional lawyers.  The civil rights heroes of our age are not Sam Adams or Susan B. Anthony or Dorothy Height, but rather lawyer-scholars like Lawrence Tribe, Erwin Chemerinsky, and Geoffrey Stone.

These are the valiant warriors or our times, but their weaponry is not limited to one political ideology or cause.  Indeed, perhaps anti-gay sentiment in the United States is really just lawyer envy.

Perhaps, thirty years from now, we'll all realize that gay people are mutant cyborgs with no souls.  Who are you going to call to undo that shit?  The Terminator?  The Jedi Council?  A constitutional assembly driven by popular will?

Please - you'll need lawyers.  So you don't like Obergefell?  That's cool.  But don't hate on the law's ability to do whatever the fuck it wants and then find a way to justify it.  It's all in the game, baby.

Go to law school, study the bushido of the sophistry warrior, and fight for your way.  Who knows, maybe someday you'll end immigration or bring slavery back.

Now, surely, there's those of who you don't want to bring slavery back or end immigration.  The answer isn't to stomp around and call people insensitive monsters who want to deny basic rights in a delicious, awesome neo-Fascist empire.  No!  The answer is - you guessed it! - to go to law school to fight for the good guys!

This is an arm's race, and let me tell you, there's always more room in the missile silo for straight shooters who are ready to explode.

It's almost July 4th, but seats are still available at your local law school.

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