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You see, I don't see abortion (particularly third trimester) as equaling gay marriage as equaling polygamous marriage, all wrapped up in one Pandora's box. I don't see killing a semi sentient fetus for convenience as quite the same as what two consensual adults want as far as sealing their rights and duties to each other.

Neither do I.

But I can look at history and from what I have learned on my own and with yours and others help here at FR, it is plain to me that the natural progression of SCOTUS precedents is the liberalization of those precedents.

Roe took us to PBA in the last trimester. Engel v Vitale morphed into a ban on voluntary prayer before football games. I could go on but the point is quite simple. The history of 20th century jurisprudence is an activist court moving toward an ever more socially liberal USA and quite like you, I see nothing on the horizon to stop them.

The institution of marriage is on its way out unless the Massachusetts SJC is stopped and if I live long enough, I'll be able to point to all the new laws required to handle the new "marriage" paradigm as evidence of my thesis.

"The history of 20th century jurisprudence is an activist court moving toward an ever more socially liberal USA."

Bullsh%t.

The Court does not lead society, it follows it, simply acknowledging what direction society has already taken.

To use the example of Roe v. Wade, the Court's decision would be utterly meaningless, if societal acceptance of sex outside of marriage was not the norm, and if we as a society had no brought the challenge up to them. The belief that abortion was a woman's right was not created in the vacuum that is the SCOTUS, the argument was brought to them.

You, on the other hand, believe in a form of Judicial activism that would set up the Court as a social engineer, and use the unwillingness of the Congress or State Houses to address sensitive issues directly out of fear of the reaction of the majority voters, to prolong what in many clear cases is an inequity in our laws.

Individuals, who feel that their civil privileges and rights are being violated, and without a voice in our government, and a way to move toward challenging these laws because of the nature of being a minority within the society, need the Courts to hear their arguments, and examine how laws impact the individual.

In Texas, there was not a chance in Hell that the legislature was going to "fix" a bad law, and it was a bad law in spite of whatever you believe.

Now, we LOVE Judicial activism when it suits our purposes, or at least we certainly did in Bush v. Gore, when Rehnquist, Scalia, and Thomas, after spending years fighting the liberal expansion of the equal protection clause, used it to stop the recounts.

Was it activism?

Only if you are a lefty.