Maggie Gallagher writes in the Wall Street Journal "voters don't like politicians who flip flop—especially under pressure from Democrats":

New York was a big win for gay-marriage advocates, no question. It was a big win precisely because it was not inevitable: The New York Republican Party decided to abandon its base to make this happen.

Four Republicans voted for gay marriage. Republican Majority Leader Dean Skelos permitted a vote on marriage, a move that he asserted the majority of Senate Republicans supported. To kill this bill, Republicans only needed to do what Democrats repeatedly do when they control a chamber: refuse to bring it up for a vote.

So what will the consequences of Gov. Andrew Cuomo's triumph be in other states and for New York's Republican Party? There are three things to keep in mind. [Continue reading...]

Benjamin Shapiro, a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the Freedom Center argues against David Frum's abdication of defending marriage:

What was Frum’s justification for his shift from traditional marriage advocate to same-sex marriage friend? “The short answer is that the case against same-sex marriage has been tested against reality. The case has not passed its test.”

... This, of course, is supremely idiotic. Same-sex marriage has not been tested nationwide. It is sanctioned by the government in precisely six states now: New York, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Iowa, Vermont, and New Hampshire. California is on the fence. Not much of a sample size.

...nobody is accusing same-sex marriage of being the sole determinant of marital decline. But it is a symptom of a broader devaluation of marriage. The same people who push for same-sex marriage push for registered partnerships, for civil unions – for governmental benefits for non-traditional marriage. As those legal situations become more available, more people will take advantage of them, and less people will buy into traditional marriage. We’ve already seen it in the Netherlands, where the number of marriages has declined consistently since the legalization of gay marriage; it’s down 10 percent since 1999. Meanwhile, registered partnerships have exploded 500 percent over the last ten years. According to William C. Duncan of the Institute for Marriage and Public Policy, “Nine in ten couples plan to live together before marrying and two-thirds of cohabiting couples plan to marry ‘but keep postponing marriage.’”

In the Daily Freeman:

The chairman of the State Conservative Committee said he expects the party to pull its endorsement of state Sen. Stephen Saland, R-Poughkeepsie, because of his vote in support of gay marriage in New York.

Michael Long on Monday said his party stands for traditional values of marriage only between a man and woman and every candidate seeking their endorsement knows this going into an election.

The editors of National Review on the passage of New York's same-sex marriage law:

For years, we were told that same-sex marriage was necessary for meeting couples’ concrete needs. Then, that it could and should be used to make same-sex couples live by marital norms. More recently, that relationship recognition was necessary for equal personal dignity. Now Katherine Franke, on the day that same-sex marriage passes in New York, tells us that that was all wrong.

The latest canard is that the defeat of the conjugal conception of marriage is inevitable because there isn’t even an argument for it. But the core argument is simple, and pieces like Franke’s bolster it: As many liberals now concede and even embrace, redefining marriage leaves no principled reason—none at all—not to recognize relationships of every size and type. As normative features of marriage, permanence, exclusivity, and sexual complementarity are a package deal. The first two norms make sense—are intelligible as norms—only because of the link between marriage and procreation. The only question, increasingly, is whether the loss of these once-defining attributes of marriage is bad. For clearheaded and candid liberationists, it’s only just. (Think: Which argument for same-sex “marriage” wouldn’t easily extend to any relationship that someone, somewhere, finds most fulfilling? Non-discrimination among loving relationships? Non-stigmatization? It won’t hurt anyone else’s marriage?)

And so, when emboldened liberals use this victory to push their quasi-religious myth of Inevitable Historical Progress, we should recall that there was nothing inevitable about it. New York Republican senators could have tabled the bill and sent the issue to the people, without moral or political cost, and it would have been over. Liberals opposed a marriage referendum for exactly one reason: They would have lost, as they have in all 31 states that put the issue to a referendum. But in a year when Democratic minorities have been fleeing statehouses to block unfavorable votes, the New York senate’s Republican majority brought this upon itself, and for no apparent reason.