Conor asks:

What do you imagine would be a more radical change to our current marriage laws, allowing gays — 5 percent of the population, say — the ability to wed, or returning to a matchmaker system or a system in which it’s common for men to take multiple wives?

Well, since Conor asks, I would have to say that the former is a more radical change for a few reasons: it is entirely unprecedented (James Boswell’s fantasies about what adelphopoia represents notwithstanding), it quite plainly departs from any recognizable form of matrimony, and so it absolutely divorces marriage from procreation, which all of these other varieties of marriage not only include but make central to their understanding of marriage’s purpose. It might be that the more radical change is not necessarily the most socially destructive change (liberalized divorce laws are more modest, but almost certainly have far worse effects), but it is more vehemently opposed because of the degree to which it is proposing to change a fundamental institution. To address Conor’s other point regarding conservatism, the standard for the conservative case would have to be much higher than he has made it. When endorsing a change, particularly one this radical, a conservative would need to show not only that it does not do harm to the institution in question but also that it actually reinforces and reinvigorates the institution. Whether or not “gay marriage” harms the institution of marriage, it certainly does not strengthen it. It is therefore undesirable because it is unnecessary to the preservation of the relevant institution, and so the appropriate conservative view is to leave well enough alone.

If allowing that change means, as Andrew puts it, “accepting gay love and commitment as indistinguishable in moral worth and social status as straight love,” it is not going to happen for a very long time, if it ever will, because I think it is fair to say that opponents of “gay marriage” do not accept the two as indistinguishable and see no reason why they should. If that is what “gay marriage” requires, I see even less reason why conservatives should accept it. Indeed, that statement helps explain the reason why “gay marriage” is so strenuously opposed while there is no movement trying to overturn Lawrence: there is a vast difference between permitting something and being compelled to accept it as indistinguishable from the norm.

Incidentally, this is one reason why Newsweek‘s articles on the subject and their attempt to fabricate a religious case for “gay marriage” were met with so many harsh critiques, including mine: it is one thing to say that there ought to be legal protections in a secular system for certain relationships, which might then be established through the legislative process (rather than by judicial ruling), and quite another to say that religious conservatives must concede that their understanding of their own sacraments and Scripture is somehow faulty because they refuse to modify their religious teachings to suit the fashions of the world. The attempt to distort Christian tradition to suit the cause of the moment and to pretend that fidelity to that tradition is actually betrayal of it, as Meacham attempted to do, is the sort of insulting and obnoxious tactic that not only fails to persuade but also makes opponents of cultural change even more resistant than they were. Meacham and Newsweek‘s attempt to claim some religious sanction or authority for something that has none did achieve one thing: it served as a confirmation of the fears of religious conservatives in churches throughout the world that attempts to re-define marriage seem necessarily to go hand in hand with innovation and distortion of Christian teaching.