Loving v. Haters

The National Review finally dumps that loathsome old bigot, Bill Buckley, on the trash heap of history. From The Corner:

Segregation was a profound social evil. Full stop. Marriage as an exclusive heterosexual union is a necessary social good. It is why all cultures since earliest days, regardless of religion, law, or culture, have marriage as only between men and women.


Loving v. Virginia struck down a legal regime, peculiar to certain parts of the nation, that was wholly racist at its core. As the court observed, the Virginia law was about “the absolute prohibition of a ‘white person’ marrying other than another ‘white person’.” It was about nothing more than the racial purity of whites and all the ugliness that implies.

But Bill Buckley thought segregation was a profound social good. Full stop:

The central question that emerges . . . is whether the White community in the South is entitled to take such measures as are necessary to prevail, politically and culturally, in areas in which it does not prevail numerically? The sobering answer is Yes – the White community is so entitled because, for the time being, it is the advanced race. It is not easy, and it is unpleasant, to adduce statistics evidencing the cultural superiority of White over Negro: but it is a fact that obtrudes, one that cannot be hidden by ever-so-busy egalitarians and anthropologists.

[...]

National Review believes that the South's premises are correct. It is more important for the community, anywhere in the world, to affirm and live by civilized standards, than to bow to the demands of the numerical majority. Sometimes it becomes impossible to assert the will of a minority, in which case it must give way, and the society will regress; sometimes the numerical minority cannot prevail except by violence: then it must determine whether the prevalence of its will is worth the terrible price of violence.

In 50 years, National Review may acknowledge that Glenn Stanton's bigotry is the same as Bill Buckley's. I suspect a condemnation of Glenn Stanton's criticism of Buckley is more likely.