First published August 10, 2001, in National Review Online.
HATS OFF to Stanley Kurtz for one of the most thoughtful conservative treatments yet of gay marriage ("Love and Marriage" and The Right Balance). Kurtz has advanced the argument on both the social-policy and the constitutional side of the issue. Let me see if I can advance it further still, starting with his argument that sex difference lies at the core of successful marriage.
I've argued that marriage will have many of the same domesticating and healthful effects on homosexuals as on heterosexuals. Kurtz argues, by contrast, that it is women, not marriage, that domesticate men. Traditional marriage, in this view, is a male-female bargain: The man exchanges promiscuity for security and a stable love life. Male-male spouses, however, will continue to be promiscuous within marriage. This will weaken marriage itself. "A world of same-sex marriages is a world of no-strings heterosexual hookups and 50 percent divorce rates." Indeed, "our increased tolerance for homosexuality" is already part and parcel of "the weakening of marriage."
There are some important cavils with this line of thinking, the most obvious being (1) that it offers no argument against same-sex marriage for lesbians, (2) that America is already "a world of no-strings heterosexual hookups and 50 percent divorce rates" and has been for years, and (3) that "tolerance for homosexuality" is at most a trivial cause of marriage's problems compared with such factors as liberalized divorce laws, women's increased economic independence, the spread of contraception, the decline of the shotgun wedding, and the cultural changes of the 1960s and 1970s. Still, Kurtz's argument goes deeper and deserves a deeper reply.
I think he's right that women (and children) domesticate lusty men. That's why everyone is so happy when the town bully takes a bride. But - a crucial point - women and children are not the only things that domesticate men. Marriage itself also does so. The reason is that marriage is not a piece of paper ratifying a pre-existing relationship. It is a caregiving contract that two people make not just with each other but with society, and it's enforced with a whole bundle of rituals and expectations, from public gestures like weddings and rings and anniversary banquets to in-laws and shared finances and joint party invitations addressed to both spouses. Far from being a rubber stamp, marriage is a culture that actively binds people together.
Will extending this culture to homosexuals damage it by ratifying rampant promiscuity, or strengthen it by affirming and extending its reach? This is a question that can only be answered empirically, which is why gay marriage should be tried in a few states (see below). But we do have quite a bit of suggestive evidence, in the form of existing homosexual unions of the all-but-married sort. Of the ones I know, I can't think of any that don't aspire to aspire to fidelity and lifetime commitment, even without a woman in the house. More important, when they fail in this aspiration, they do so in private, so as not to embarrass each other or their friends and family, who accept and respect their partnership. That's all we ask of straights.
In the real world, some married heterosexuals play around a lot (even if they're president), some play around not at all, and some play around a little and get over it. All, however, are allowed to marry. It might be true that on average male-male pairs will be less faithful than male-female ones, who in turn will probably be less faithful on average than female-female ones. But if the question is whether gay marriage should be legal, rather than exactly what any given marriage looks like, those are the wrong averages to look at. Here are the right ones: The average married homosexual man will almost certainly be much less wanton than the average unmarried homosexual man. And I think it's pretty likely that even the average unmarried homosexual man will be significantly less wanton in a gay culture where marriage is expected than in a one where marriage is illegal.
Really, truly, if I thought that homosexuals would treat marriage like an orgy and inspire millions of heterosexuals to do the same, I'd say we're not ready for the privilege. But I don't think that's remotely likely; Vermont isn't full of orgies posing as civil unions. And it's at least as plausible that gay marriage will strengthen marriage as weaken it. When homosexual couples can legally commit to each other for a lifetime, they, too, will be able to say to each other: "If you really care about me, as opposed to just wanting to have sex with me, you'll marry me." Many, probably most, homosexual men want to get off the market and settle down, but it's hard to sort out the serious partners if marriage isn't an option. Allow gays to marry, you don't wreck proper courtship - you allow it to begin. I'm not saying that male-male or female-female courtship is identical to male-female courtship (not that any two are alike anyway). But it doesn't need to be. It only needs to work better than, "If you really care about me, you'll move in with me."
When I started to understand I was gay, a particularly bitter realization was that, whatever the future might hold for me, it would not hold marriage. A life without the possibility of marriage is a deprivation so severe that most heterosexuals can't even imagine it. If I'm right, same-sex marriage will give stability and care and comfort to millions of homosexuals at little or no cost to anyone else. If I'm wrong, it's not a good idea. The only way to find out is to try and see, which is why I favor a federalist approach that lets some state experiment with same-sex marriage when it feels the time and circumstances are right.
In his second article, Kurtz argues that my federalist approach is a daydream. For one thing, the courts might not go along with it. Kurtz is certainly right that the constitutionality of the Defense of Marriage Act, which says that no state need recognize any other's same-sex marriage, will be challenged in the courts. Everything is challenged in the courts. I'm confident that the courts will uphold the act; I just can't see this or any foreseeable Supreme Court imposing gay marriage nationally by fiat. But, of course, there's no telling what courts may do. The answer is obvious: Write DOMA into the Constitution. An amendment saying, "Nothing in this Constitution shall require any state to recognize as a marriage any union but that of one man and one woman," does the trick. End of problem.
Such an amendment would be much less controversial, and much easier to pass, than the one that the would-be amenders have actually proposed, which bans gay marriage altogether. Why the "not one inch" position, which says that same-sex marriage must never be allowed on even one square inch of U.S. soil, regardless of what the people of any state want? Because, says Kurtz, even if states are not required by the courts to recognize other states' gay marriages, they will be driven to do so by practicalities.
Now, hold on there. It's true that having only a few states recognize gay marriage would lead to confusions and legal tangles. This, however, is what's known as federalism. In other contexts - tax law, corporate charters, environmental rules - we live with confusingly disparate state laws routinely, as any attorney for a national bank will be quick to confirm. It's a hassle, but the benefit is enormous: the ability to experiment with different policies and to let local people create a social and legal climate that suits them (or move to a state where they'll be happier).
My guess is that, after an initial period of confusion, states and the courts would fairly quickly develop workable rules for gay marriage. For instance, a state that had a partnership program might automatically include any resident gay couple with an out-of-state marriage licenses. States that firmly object to same-sex unions, by contrast, will simply tell those couples, "Sorry, you're not officially married here. If you want to be officially married, stay there. Here, you need to write a will." This doesn't seem "next to impossible." It doesn't even seem very difficult. Compared to the headaches of interstate banking laws, it's a piece of cake.
And what's the alternative? National culture war. Support for gay marriage, now at 35 percent, is likely to grow over time, and the argument is passionate. Kurtz's insistence on "all or nothing" risks turning same-sex marriage into the next abortion issue, in which the stakes are so high - national imposition of gay marriage versus national abolition - that extremism runs riot on both sides. And what if Kurtz et al. gamble on all-or-nothing and lose? What if they refuse to try federalism and they fail to pass their constitutional ban and the courts actually do rule that all states must recognize one state's same-sex marriages? Then their rejection of federalism will have brought about exactly the nightmare they feared. If that happens, don't blame us homosexuals for polarizing the argument and "ramming homosexual marriage down the country's throat."
Believe me, Mr. Kurtz: Federalism is the solution, not the problem. At the very least, it should be given a chance. Isn't that what conservatives always tell liberals?
Thanks to Stanley Kurtz for another provocative and richly argued article. Shall we drill a little deeper? If I read him correctly, his argument boils down to something like this:
- Marriage is rooted essentially in "the underlying dynamic of male-female sexuality." Nothing else can sustain marriage.
- As a result, it is simply impossible for same-sex (especially male-male) couples to be good marital citizens. They may get married, but they won't act married, and society won't treat them as married.
- Because homosexuals will do a bad job of "exemplifying modern marriage for the nation" and marriage is in bad enough shape already, homosexuals should not be allowed to marry.
- Allowing same-sex marriage anywhere in America at any time is effectively the same as mandating it everywhere forever. So same-sex marriage must never be tried anywhere, ever.
Or, to put it a bit coarsely: "I don't believe homosexuals can handle marriage responsibly. And they should never be allowed a chance to prove me wrong. Sorry, gay people, but that's life."
Kurtzism, as I'll take the liberty of calling this approach, gets four things wrong. It misanalyzes marriage. It misunderstands homosexuality. It sits crosswise with liberalism. And it traduces federalism. Other than that, no problem.
Start with Proposition 1. Kurtz argues that, whatever else marriage is about, ultimately and indispensably it's about "the underlying dynamic of male-female sexuality." I'm not sure exactly what this means beyond saying that marriage must be between a man and a woman, so I'm not sure how to address it specifically. Here is what I think marriage is indispensably about: the commitment to care for another person, for better or worse, in sickness and in health, till death do you part.
A marriage can and often does flourish long after the passion has faded, long after the children have gone, and (yes) long after infidelity; it can flourish without children and even without sex. A marriage is a real marriage as long as the spouses continue to affirm that caring for and supporting and comforting each other is the most important task in their lives. A golden anniversary is not a great event because both spouses have held up their end of a "dynamic of male-female sexuality" but because 50 years of devotion is just about the noblest thing that human beings can achieve.
I can't prove I'm right and Kurtz is wrong. But I think my view is much closer to what people actually think their marriages are fundamentally about, and also, by the way, to what marriage should be fundamentally about. Most married people I know regard themselves as more or less equal partners in an intricate relationship whose essential ingredient is the lifelong caregiving contract. Obviously, they'd agree that male-female sexual dynamics play an important role in their marriage; but then, they're male-female couples, so they would say that. If you told them that marriage is fundamentally about (in Kurtz's words) "a man's responsibilities to a woman," rather than a person's responsibilities to a person, they'd look at you funny.
Why is Kurtz so reluctant to put commitment instead of sex roles at the center of marriage? Because, I suspect, he knows homosexuals can form commitments. To cut off this pass, he claims that in practice homosexuals too often won't form commitments (Proposition 2). Same-sex couples, or in any case male same-sex couples, won't act married, and society won't be bothered if they don't, so marriage will become a hollow shell.
I've explained why I believe that a world where everyone, straight and gay, can grow up aspiring to marry will be a world where gays and straights and marriage are all better off. Kurtz has explained why he thinks otherwise. All of that is well and good, but it only gets us so far, because the key questions are all empirical. How would married gay couples behave? How would married heterosexuals react? Unfortunately, we have no direct evidence. One can say that in Vermont, which has a civil-union law, "the institution of marriage has not collapsed," as the governor recently said. One can say that gay men (no one seems worried about lesbians not taking marriage seriously) represent probably 3 percent of the population, and that it seems a stretch to insist that the 97 percent will emulate the 3 percent. But none of that proves anything. Absent some actual experience with same-sex marriage, everything is conjecture.
Still, I think Kurtz's conjecture is based on a view of homosexuality that is both misguided and at least unintentionally demeaning. His article contains this arresting phrase: "As the ultimate symbol of the detachment of sexuality from reproduction, homosexuality embodies the sixties ethos of sexual self-fulfillment." So there you are. My relationship with my partner Michael is about "sexual self-fulfillment," because, I guess, we can't have children. Let me gently but passionately say to Kurtz that this is an affront. It implies that a straight man's life partner is his wife, while a gay man's life partner is just his squeeze. Let me also gently but firmly instruct Kurtz on a point that I and other homosexuals are in a position to know something about. Our partners are not walking dildos and vibrators. Our partners are our companions, our soulmates, our loves.
I'm not familiar with the Stiers book he cites and I couldn't get it on deadline, so I can't comment on it. I can say, though, that I wouldn't be the least surprised if right now, in 2001, grown gay men and women often regard marriage as a novelty or a convenient benefits package. What does Kurtz expect? These are people who grew up knowing they could never marry, who have structured their whole lives outside of marriage, and who have of necessity built their relationships as alternatives to marriage.
I don't expect that homosexuals will all flock to the altar the day after marriage is legalized. You don't take a culture that has been defined forever by exclusion from marriage and expect it to change overnight. I do think that, a few years after legalization, we'll see something new: A whole generation of homosexuals growing up knowing that they can marry, seeing successfully married gay couples out and about, and often being encouraged to marry by their parents and mentors. Making the closet culture the exception rather than the rule for young gay people was the work of one or maybe two generations. The shift to a normative marriage culture may happen just as fast.
I know, I know. Kurtz will simply insist that real, committed marriage will never be normative for homosexuals; gays just don't have that "dynamic of male-female sexuality" thing. Unfortunately, I don't think I can persuade him by telling him about all the gay people I know who have committed their enduring love and care to each other. I doubt I could persuade him even by telling him about all the men I know who have fed and comforted and carried their dying partners, and covered their partners with their bodies to keep them warm, and held their hands at the end and then sobbed and sobbed. Who is more fit to marry, the homosexual who comes home every night to wipe the vomit from the chin of his wasting partner, or the heterosexual who serves his first wife with divorce papers while she is in the hospital with cancer so that he can get on with marrying his second wife? Alas, I think I know what Kurtz would say.
Kurtz cites figures on gay men's fidelity and attitudes toward monogamy. There are lots of problems with these kinds of numbers, but the more interesting question is: Just what does Kurtz think this kind of data proves? Exactly how monogamous do homosexuals have to be in order to earn the right to marry? I'd have thought that being better than 80 percent faithful would be pretty darn good. Would 90 percent satisfy him? Maybe 98.2 percent? And if a group's average fidelity is the qualification for marriage, shouldn't Kurtz let lesbians marry right now? And why are homosexuals the only class of people who are not allowed to marry until they prove, in advance, that they'll be good marital citizens? Last time I checked, heterosexual men were allowed to take a fifth wife, no questions asked, even if they beat their first, abandoned their second, cheated on their third, and attended orgies with their fourth.
For centuries, homosexuals have been barred from marrying and even from having open relationships. The message has been: Furtive, underground sex is all homosexuals deserve. And now Kurtz is insisting (Proposition 3) that homosexuals can't wed because we're not as sexually well-behaved as married heterosexuals? While also insisting that, no matter how badly heterosexuals behave, their right to marry will go unquestioned? Really, the gall!
Forgive my ill temper on that point. I understand that, to Kurtz and many other Americans, same-sex marriage seems a radical concept, an abuse of the term "marriage." What I think Kurtz and too many other opponents of gay marriage fail to appreciate is the radicalism of telling millions of Americans that they can never marry anybody they love. To be prohibited from taking a spouse is not a minor inconvenience. It is a lacerating deprivation. Marriage, probably more even than voting and owning property and having children, is the core element of aspiration to the good life. Kurtz would deprive all homosexuals of any shot at it lest some of them set a poor example. I think this is both inhumane and cuts against liberalism's core principle, which is that people are to be treated ends in themselves, not as means to some utilitarian social end. I am grateful to Kurtz for leaving the door open to domestic-partnership programs as a consolation prize; this is a good-hearted gesture, and I accept it as such. But surely he recognizes that domestic partnership is no substitute for matrimony. Surely, indeed, that is his point in offering it.
Same-sex marriage is too important to be approached thoughtlessly. I'm glad that Kurtz is thinking as strenuously about the possible downsides as I am about the possible upsides. Where he veers toward something like extremism is in his demand that homosexuals be denied any chance to prove his conjectures wrong (Proposition 4). "There is no such thing as an experiment in gay marriage," he says. "Rauch seems to think that if his cost-free portrait of gay marriage turns out to be mistaken, we can simply call off the experiment. But by then it will surely be too late. Such effects take years to play out, decades more to measure, and even when measured, agreement on the meaning of such data is nearly impossible to achieve."
But pretty nearly all major social-policy reforms play out over years and decades, and agreement on how to measure the results is never complete; Kurtz might just as well say that no state should be allowed to try welfare reform or charter schools or a "living wage" because the effects take years to play out, decades to measure, etc. The whole point of federalism is to allow states to try reforms that might not work, and to allow states' voters not me or Stanley Kurtz to decide for themselves what counts as working. In rejecting this principle root and branch, Kurtz emerges as a radical enemy not just of same-sex marriage but of federalism itself.
I don't have much new to say about his peculiar claim that, once any state adopts same-sex marriage, every other state will have to follow, because Kurtz doesn't have anything new to say defending it. He simply re-asserts it. "Imagine a married couple, where one spouse is hospitalized after a car accident in another state, losing visiting rights or the right to make medical decisions, because their marriage isn't recognized in that state," he says, as if the situation is obviously untenable. OK, I've imagined it. That kind of arrangement would be perfectly manageable. Gay spouses in a state with same-sex marriage would understand that they will need a medical power of attorney that's valid out-of-state. None of these complexities is remotely thorny enough to force any state to recognize same-sex marriage against its will. It seems to me that what Kurtz really fears is that one state will adopt same-sex marriage and others will look at it and say, "Actually, that doesn't seem so bad pretty good, even. We don't mind recognizing it even if we don't adopt it ourselves." What he really fears, in other words, is not a disastrous state experiment but a successful one.
Again Kurtz asserts that federal judges will high-handedly impose one state's same-sex marriages on all the others. Again I say that there is just as he says plenty of room in the law for determined judges to decide this legal issue either way, but that any sane Supreme Court will be determined not to impose same-sex marriage on an unwilling nation. And if undemocratic judicial fiat is what worries Kurtz, why does he greet with silence my suggestion that a simple constitutional amendment far easier to pass than the one he supports would solve the problem?
But all of this stuff about states' being "forced" to accept same-sex marriage is a red herring. Kurtz makes it clear that he is no happier if a state adopts same-sex marriage by legislation or plebiscite than by judicial fiat. His proposed constitutional amendment accordingly strips states, and not just judges, of the power to permit same-sex marriage, even if everybody in some state wants to try it. What I suspect Kurtz really knows and fears is that as more homosexuals form devoted and visible unions, and as more of the public accepts and honors those unions, same-sex marriage will seem ever less strange and radical, and ever more in harmony with Americans' core values which it is. Although he fears that same-sex marriage will come to pass over the public's objections, he fears even more that it will come to pass with the public's assent.
I read Stanley Kurtz's latest contribution to our gay-marriage discussion several times, and I came away concluding that his position really does, as I said last time, essentially boil down to: "I don't believe homosexuals can handle marriage responsibly. And they should never be allowed a chance to prove me wrong. Sorry, gay people, but that's life."
Although I do think it's wrong to demand that homosexuals who want to marry prove they'll meet sexual-behavior standards that are never applied to heterosexuals, I don't believe that homosexuals have an absolute right to marriage, and I've been careful, pace Kurtz, not to rest my case on rights. (When I talk casually about, for example, "denying homosexuals the right to marry," I mean 'right' only in the weaker sense of statutory entitlement.) If I thought that legalizing same-sex marriage would destroy or seriously damage marriage for everyone, then I would oppose same-sex marriage as a self-defeating entitlement. My argument is one about presumption. If there is significant doubt about the effects of same-sex marriage and of course neither Kurtz nor I nor anybody else really knows what would happen, and in truth many good and bad and indifferent things would happen then the presumption ought to be that everyone should have a chance to participate in society's most important civic institution. At a bare minimum, if the claim is that homosexuals will wreck marriage, we should not be forever denied any hope of showing that we won't wreck marriage.
It means a lot to me to hear Kurtz say that there is an "inescapable element of tragedy" in having to deny marriage to homosexuals in order to preserve it for everybody else. Many conservatives, probably almost all until very recently, have viewed gay lives and loves as a more or less inconsequential factor in the debate over gay marriage. Their attitude has been, "Why do these homosexuals insist on wrecking marriage? Why don't they just go away and leave well enough alone? So what if they can't marry? Pass the potato chips." Kurtz will have none of that. I thank him.
But "so sorry" only gets Kurtz so far if the tragedy is of his own making. If he really believes that denying marriage to homosexuals is tragic, he should seek to avoid rather than perpetuate the tragedy. If there is any reasonable possibility that the alleged tragic trade-off between gay and straight marriage is imaginary that same-sex and opposite-sex marriage could happily coexist he should look for and embrace a reasonable option that could test that possibility. One such option is to let our federalist system run its course, letting individual states try same-sex marriage if and when they please. Then we'll see what happens. Yet it is Kurtz who seeks to foreclose this option, with a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage. He would thus rule tragedy into being: tragedy in the form of perpetual homosexual alienation from the social institution that's most important for a happy and healthy life. For all that I appreciate Kurtz's stated solicitousness of gay lives and loves and believe me, I do it may be that the old-fashioned conservative "We don't care" was in some ways more honest.
How would we know if gay marriage works? Kurtz charges that it would be very hard ever to persuade me that a state gay-marriage experiment failed, and that I "will clearly oppose a rollback, on principle, anytime before the next 50 years." Here, I think, Kurtz again misapprehends federalist (and democratic) principle. The question isn't what Jonathan Rauch or Stanley Kurtz or any other pointy-head thinks of a state's experience with gay marriage; the question is what the people of that state and of other states think. The whole point of a federalist approach is that it lets the voters of the states decide what sort of arrangement counts as a social-policy success. I will accept their judgment. Why won't he?
Well, on that subject I think Kurtz and I have reached the point of repeating ourselves. Anyway, I've reached that point. So I'll leave the arguments before the reader and pass on to a couple of other threads. Kurtz says that I'm at the conservative end of the gay intelligentsia on marriage, and that a lot of gay radicals and intellectuals think I'm wrong. That's certainly true, but I don't see why it's important. Gay radicals and intellectuals think all sorts of things but are no more likely than anyone else to be right; it's the argument and evidence, not the source, that counts. I think the gay left-winger who says gay matrimony will undermine the norms of marriage is just as wrong as the conservative right-winger who says it. What else can I say?
In any case, the gay intelligentsia are all over the map on marriage. Not long ago, in an article in Reason magazine, I dissected a book by Michael Warner, a prominent and very smart gay radical who argues that sexual norms of any kind are oppressive. He loathes the idea of same-sex marriage precisely because "the effect would be to reinforce the material privileges and cultural normativity of marriage," which would reduce the amount of sexual experimentation going on, which he thinks would be awful. As I'm sure Kurtz knows, there are a lot of gay radicals who share Warner's fear that marriage will change gay culture in appallingly bourgeois ways. Does that show I'm right? Really, I don't think brandishing gay intellectuals gets us anywhere.
It may be more productive to focus on an odd convergence of interests between the world's Michael Warners and Stanley Kurtzes. Warner and his ilk dislike gay marriage, but they can't be against it because they think homosexuals should have equal rights, including the right to marry. So how do they get out of this box? By arguing for a multiplicity of alternatives to marriage, thus eroding marriage's unique prestige.
Don't get me wrong; if I can't get gay marriage, I'll reluctantly take partnership programs, which would do at least something to recognize and nourish stable gay relationships. But from a social point of view, a partnership program indeed, anything that competes with marriage is a poor second choice. Most gay-marriage opponents just say, "Fine, then homosexuals should get nothing." But a few more compassionate and far-sighted opponents people like Kurtz understand that telling homosexuals to go fly a kite is not an option. Americans really believe in the Golden Rule, equal opportunity to pursue happiness, and all that. They're going to want to do something for homosexuals, a desire that will increase as more sons and daughters and siblings and friends come out.
Something really new, without historical precedent, is happening in America. Today, for the first time, a majority is coming to realize that homosexuals actually exist: that we're not just heterosexuals who need treatment or jail. This realization will, must, and should drive change in a society whose institutions are premised on the notion that homosexuals do not actually exist. The question is whether marriage or something else should be the template. If there's one social regularity I can think of, it's that marriage the commitment to care for another person for life has good effects on human populations, and that its denial has bad effects, and that the alternatives are worse. But if Kurtz absolutely cannot accept that this might be true in the case of same-sex unions, then he had better start planning for a nation full of Vermonts, with all kinds of sort-of-marriage programs.
Note that, once partnership programs are set up, heterosexuals who don't want to get married invariably clamor to get in. "How come only the gays get this? No special rights!" As of 1998, all three of the states and all but a handful of the municipalities that offered domestic-partner programs for their workers included opposite-sex couples; so did the large majority of corporate programs. I grant that to some extent "marriage lite" will spread anyway, because some states that bar gay marriage will offer alternatives. But a constitutional ban on gay marriage will force all states that want to do anything for homosexuals to create alternatives to marriage. Employers, too, will create multifarious partnership programs that would be unnecessary if homosexuals could just get married. Is all this good for marriage? Kurtz worries about "the dissolution of marriage and its replacement by an infinitely flexible series of relationship contracts." But that is exactly what he guarantees by withholding the template of marriage!
Polygamy, which rears its ugly head in Kurtz's last paragraph and in his argument against Andrew Sullivan, merits a discussion of its own; here, just a few words. On grounds of both equality and social policy, gay marriage is completely consonant with liberal principles, and polygamy just as completely isn't and the distinction is not hard to understand and sustain. Homosexuals are not asking for the legal right to marry anybody or everybody we love. We are asking for precisely and only the same legal right that heterosexuals enjoy, namely the right to marry somebody we love: one person, as opposed to no one at all. Liberalism holds that similarly situated people should be similarly treated by law. Americans increasingly understand that a gay man who is allowed to marry a woman is not situated similarly to a straight man who is allowed to marry a woman. Nor is a gay man who wants to marry a man situated similarly to a straight man who wants to marry three women or a man who wants to marry his dog or his Volkswagen; he is situated similarly to a heterosexual man who wants to marry one woman. Saying that gay marriage leads to polygamy is no more logically coherent than saying that if blacks (say) demand and are given one vote, whites (say) will inevitably demand and be given two.
Moreover, a liberal regime has a strong social-policy interest in making marriage universal. There's a reason why no polygamous countries are liberal: if some men usually high-status men get multiple wives, then by definition other men usually low-status men get no wives. The result is a restless and destabilizing sexual underclass that must be subdued by some form of repression. Not coincidentally, gay culture, in its own way, for many years had some characteristics of a restless and destabilizing sexual underclass, and it was subdued to some extent by repression. That all began to change when open gay relationships started becoming socially acceptable. Gay marriage is, obviously, completely consonant with liberal aspirations to make marriage something that everyone can aspire to. In fact, it fulfills those aspirations.