Michael Rappaport dismisses David Frum's arguments against homosexual marriage with the following toreador move:

In the end, Frum�s essay mixes both moral arguments (based on consequences) and political feasibility arguments. Many social conservative arguments against gay marriage rely on this same strategy, but what is politically feasible can change over time. If social conservatives are to participate in this debate, they need to articulate why they think gay marriage is a bad thing rather than merely explaining why it will not happen in the face of trends that appear to suggest just the opposite.

On first impression, it seems kind of weak to say that one's opponent's arguments aren't very good and recommend a better approach. I don' t know what Frum's objective was--often giving a prognosis for political movements is all these things try to do--but citing trends is hardly a compelling argument either.

I think that the important question is whether a society can be healthy or endure when it abandons the underpinnings of the traditional family, which to me seems to be the best way to produce and rear children who become useful citizens and contribute to it. For all the kvetching by liberarians, society still depends on people who don't waste their lives on drugs, work hard, get an education and raise more citizens like themselves. All the examples to the contrary prove only that a strong society can support a pretty wide range of aberrancy. I'm not too sure that history gives us any reason to really believe that we can abandon the foundation of our society and expect it to prosper in the long run.