WASHINGTON – After the Supreme Court’s historic 1954 ruling in Brown v. Board of Education, Southern politicians adopted a strategy that became known as “massive resistance.” It doomed the South to a losing battle not just against the court, but a majority of Americans.
Some GOP conservatives may be on the verge of making a similar mistake in the aftermath of the court’s ruling last week supporting same-sex marriage. At the very time moderate Republicans want to escape positions that isolate them from an increasingly diverse and tolerant country, some hard-right leaders seem ready to double down on a limiting version of “traditional values.”
Poll numbers show why defiance is likely to be a losing strategy. According to the Pew Research Center, 57 percent of Americans support gay marriage. In the aftermath of the court’s decision, this number will probably grow, especially among the younger voters the GOP needs to attract. Among millennials, born after 1980, 73 percent support same-sex marriage.
Whether the GOP follows the road of resistance depends on how the party’s leadership reads the political mood. Denunciations of the ruling came from some right-wing presidential candidates, such as former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee. “We must resist and reject judicial tyranny, not retreat,” he thundered.
Some moderate Republicans, such as Jeb Bush, straddled the issue, dissenting from the court but promising to uphold the law.