Carson Holloway writes at Public Discourse that "Public recognition of unions contrary to human flourishing will hurt, not help, the happiness of those who participate in them":

It is not clear [...] that the quest for same-sex marriage offers any substantive good to those on whose behalf it is so insistently demanded. Put another way, it is hard to see why such an absolute equality of public recognition should be essential to the happiness of homosexuals.

... There is, moreover, a further emptiness in this quest for equal recognition. The progress of same-sex marriage in American politics has been almost entirely the result not of legislation but of litigation. The final, national victory of same-sex marriage, if it comes, will come as the result of a ruling of the Supreme Court of the United States issued not only without the consent of a majority of Americans, but even against the legally expressed will of majorities in a majority of states. Public recognition of same-sex marriage is demanded as a sign of equal public acceptance, but the mode in which it is being sought ensures that the acceptance will be fraudulent. It will be in fact not a public acceptance but the acceptance of a legal and political elite that is able to force its will on the public.