DOM

Conservatives questioned about their opposition to marriage for gays usually claim to believe that it would threaten "their kind" of marriage. When asked to say how, they seem to become inarticulate. So are they just wrong? (as proponents of marriage equality claim)

My instinct is to guess no. Widespread fears usually have a basis in reality - which is not to say that they have a valid real justification. Conservatives usually come up with a variation of the slippery slope argument - the idea that "that way lies incest, bestiality," and people marrying their tractors. Stanley Kurtz gives this argument the old manly try in NRO here. I don't quite buy it, but I think that he is getting warm.

Those familiar with my thought know that I have a penchant for evolutionary psychology based explanations of social phenomena. One aspect of that argument is that religions are ubiquitous in civilization because they serve crucial social functions. Such religions always seem to be heavily preoccupied with regulation of sex and sexual morality, which suggests in turn that such regulation is important in defining the structure and function of societies.

This idea is hardly a full-fledged explanation, much less a justification for prohibition of gay marriage (or of marrying your truck), but it is a hint that tampering with any such institution has important implications for a society.

For those who want an example, consider the decline and fall of marriage and family among American blacks. That this phenomenon is intimately connected to educational, social and economic failure and associated criminality can hardly be doubted.

Libertarians, of course, are constitutionally immune to this sort of argument. It violates their religion - disproves it actually.

Anybody have a better argument? Or, better yet, a refutation? I would love to see one.

PS - None of this is to suggest that I object to tampering with established social structures. The point is, however, that such tampering has consequences, including possibly profound consequences. If tamper we must, we had better try to anticipate those consequences. The same caution applies to greenhouse gas emission and credit default swaps.