by Jonathan Rauch

About the author: Jonathan Rauch is a writer for the weekly London-based magazine the Economist and the author of Kindly Inquisitors: The New Attacks on Free Thought.

Whatever else marriage may or may not be, it is certainly falling apart. Half of today’s marriages end in divorce, and, far more costly, many never begin— leaving mothers poor, children fatherless and neighborhoods chaotic. . . . Homosexuals have chosen this moment to press for the right to marry. What’s more, Hawaii’s courts are moving toward letting them do so. I’ll believe in gay marriage in America when I see it, but if Hawaii legalizes it, even temporarily, the uproar over this final insult to a besieged institution will be deafening.

The Purpose of Marriage

Whether gay...