Thomas Crown in RedState:

Two of the more interesting (where “interesting” is a euphemism for “horrifying”) aspects of the debate over gay “marriage” are inexorably intertwined: the decision by the movement’s backers to pretend that there is no strong connection between marriage and children (this is overwhelmingly done by those who do not have children) and a separate but related track to “get government out of marriage,” which is treated as some sort of tactical decision to, er, divorce government from its ability to decide who may marry and when.

The former is overwhelmingly done by libertarians who have taken the curious position that the failure by the state to expand a right is the same as the affirmative denial of that right, and by liberals who do not understand what rights actually are. The latter is a position taken by libertarians who believe the state’s role in marriage reaching back centuries is part of the nanny state, and conservatives who either legitimately want to preserve marriage from the barbarians or who like sounding good to their more left-wing friends.

Yet it is in the confluence of these two fantasies that the lie of both is exposed. I think it is helpful, as we embark on destroying yet another social institution and just assuming something else will pop up in its place, to understand what we are doing and what its likeliest consequences are.

These consequences, of course, somehow involve children.