Courts and the Culture Wars

For much of the second half of the 20th century, America’s courts - state and federal - have injected themselves into what many critics consider to be fundamentally moral or political disputes. By constitutionalizing these disputes courts have arguably reduced the ability of Americans to engage in traditional, political modes of settling differences. While legal discourse is well-suited to choosing decisive winners and losers, political discourse is perhaps more conducive to reasonable compromise and accommodation. This text brings together some of America’s thinkers in constitutional theory and practice to consider the impact of judicial engagement in the moral, religious and cultural realms - including school prayer, abortion, homosexual rights, and expressive speech - and the threat the judiciary poses to the very legitimacy of the American republican regime.