Democrats positively love an interventionist judiciary, because think how much time you save by striking down, say, the abortion laws of 50 states with just one blow. Without federal judges, you might have to ask the people of the states whether or not they wanted to change their laws. A ruling from the Supreme Court can go through those laws like a buzz saw. We witnessed it happen to the right of the states to register, concerning sodomy, a viewpoint other than the Supreme Court's and that of the gay rights lobby.

This is how the liberal pressure groups that make up the Democratic Party like things and propose keeping them. The furor that Democrats have stirred up over Senate confirmation of particular conservatives appointed to appeals courts is meant as a warning to the incumbent President Bush: No more "divisive" conservative nominees, buddy, least of all to the Supreme Court. No Scalias, no Thomases. Ah, but a Souter -- a "moderate," a "progressive," a friend of affirmative action and foe of traditional morality. That would be the ticket, you betcha. No Democratic filibuster would hold up such a nomination.

Doubtless the early retirement of the Lawrence Six would be thrice welcome. In the end, nevertheless, how much difference would it make? The political and media establishments are continuously engaged in showing us how cranky and unreasonable are those who deny the imperial nature of the Supreme Court's present mission. New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd's sarcastic attack this week on Scalia as a cultural Stegosaurus typifies the method: Ridicule the dinosaurs; show them out of step with society's quest to break down stale old ideas, supplanting them with wonderful new ideas -- enforcement courtesy of the Supreme Court.

Such are the rules by which we play today and under which we get stuck with judicial stinkers like Lawrence vs. Texas.