Does the legalization of gay marriage contribute to the weakening of that hallowed institution that forms the bedrock of civilization?

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The issue is back in the headlines thanks to a California federal court decision overturning the results of a voter referendum denying legal status to such unions. The matter is now headed to the Supreme Court and, reportedly, some Republicans are hoping that it will light a fire under social-conservative voters, adding to their momentum going into this fall’s election.

I will be happy if the Democrats take a pasting in November as a repudiation of Obama’s arrogant and dangerous policies. But I will take no joy in a rally of Americans against gay marriage.

Decades ago, foreign policy, crime, and reverse discrimination were the issues that drove me from the Left, making me a “neoconservative.” Over decades, I came to see the wisdom of the views of traditional conservatives on other subjects like government spending, welfare, school prayer, and more. But as for opposition to gay marriage, I just don’t get it.

Yes, homosexuality presents society with challenges that point to deep questions. What raises human beings above animals is self-denial in its multifarious forms: generosity, responsibility, modesty, and in many ways, love. Animals, in contrast, rarely transcend brutal selfishness, except in the maternal (and in some species, paternal) instinct.

Like other species, humans are possessed of strong sexual impulses, and civilization requires that they be tamed. A key means to this end is to tether sexuality as much as possible to reproduction by favoring marriage as the framework for sexuality. Of course even in marriage most sex acts do not result, and are not intended to result, in conception, but traditional marriage nonetheless forms a context in which sex and child-rearing are linked. Since homosexual acts (as distinct from homosexual individuals) can never be procreative, homosexuality excites conservative suspicions.

But the argument cannot end there. In recent times, something has come to be understood that I suppose gay people always knew. Whether the source is nature or nurture, for most, homosexuality is not a choice. And is there any among us who has not experienced desires that we wished we did not feel? At the dawn of political philosophy, Plato’s Socrates rejoices that old age has freed him from the burden of libido.

A substantial fraction of people feel carnal affinity exclusively or primarily with individuals of the same sex. Insofar as their sexuality is to be channeled it cannot be toward the goal of procreation. If society has a general interest in the constraint of the sexual instinct, then it has an interest in encouraging long-term monogamous relations regardless of whether one ostensible purpose is to bear offspring.

Indeed, one other thing that feeds suspicion toward homosexuality is the promiscuity that contributed to the AIDS plague. This, too, is obviously an argument for public policies that encourage monogamy. Of course, promiscuity is not a characteristic of female homosexuals. Rather, it is an impulse of males of all sexual orientations. Among heterosexuals, females civilize males, sexually and in other ways. Since females can’t play that role with male homosexuals, what better way have we to tame their behavior than the institution of marriage? Were we to consider only the benefit of society, disregarding individual needs, homosexual marriage should be not merely permitted but encouraged.

The objection is raised that legitimating gay marriage will further weaken the institution of marriage. What has weakened marriage is prosperity, decline of religion, and liberalized divorce laws. No one wants to undo the first or knows how to reverse the second. Those who desire legal buttresses of marriage would do better to advocate raising the bar for divorce. The claim that we defend marriage by disallowing it to homosexuals is a non sequitur. Could it not equally be argued that we reaffirm the importance of marriage by making it available even to couples who have not traditionally had this opportunity?

In short, legalizing gay marriage is more likely to ameliorate aspects of homosexuality that trouble conservatives than it is to damage further the institution of marriage, which has been shaken by trends that scarcely can be blamed on gays.