The final and strongest argument of gay marriage opponents: Don't let courts or a handful of mayors change the law on their own. Let's debate this democratically. Fine. But that will only delay the legalization of gay marriage; it won't stop it in most places. The Massachusetts judges whose diktat led to gay marriages in that state starting this week aren't operating in outer space. They are only slightly ahead of the societal consensus, just as the Supreme Court was only slightly ahead of the societal consensus when it legalized abortion in 1973. Nowadays, no matter what the court says, there isn't a state in the union that would illegalize abortion (though some might pass more restrictions than the justices would allow). In a few years, that may be true of gay marriage as well.
The Right Can't Win This Fight
With gay marriage on a roll, it's time to move on to another battle.
Commentary
Faced with virtually inevitable defeat, Republicans would be wise not to expend too much political capital pushing for a gay marriage amendment to the Constitution. They will only make themselves look "intolerant" to soccer moms whose views on this subject, as on so many others, will soon be as liberal as elite opinion already is.
The good news, from the conservative point of view, is that it's hard to imagine that legalizing gay marriage will make much difference in the lives of most people. Certainly it will have considerably less corrosive effect on society than the prevalence of divorce and out-of-wedlock childbearing.
If conservatives are worried about destigmatizing homosexuality, that's already happening. If they're worried this will lead to hordes of new "recruits" for the "other team" (as "Seinfeld" put it), that's not going to happen. Homosexuality always has been and always will be the preference of a tiny minority; most of us are biologically hard-wired for heterosexuality.
Since the ultimate concern of conservatives is to preserve the institution of marriage, they would probably be better off caving on gay marriage rather than acceding to the most popular alternative: civil union. Gay marriages won't affect straights. But if civil union laws were to catch on, as Jonathan Rauch argues in his provocative new book, "Gay Marriage," many heterosexuals would probably eschew marriage altogether. That would be worse for society than seeing Rosie O'Donnell get hitched.
