January 05, 2004

Andrew Sullivan's Right About Britney

Andrew Sullivan get's it right when he condemns Britney Spears joke marriage. It's a travesty, a mockery of what should be a very serious commitment. Fortunately, even she figured it out and will be annulling her error right about now when the courts open for business today. Unfortunately Sullivan then goes on to ruin his astute observation by trying to tie it into his wrongheaded quest for gay marriage.

A major reason why secular marriage for homosexuals is such a danger (despite the small number of actual homosexuals) is that social change currently is a one way rachet. If you loosen standards and restrictions and its a mistake, US society doesn't seem to have a practical way to tighten things back up again. The disasters of welfare, easy divorce, and abortion demonstrate the effect. Welfare took decades of mind numbing horrors to finally reform and the reforms are under threat of bureaucratic undermining to this day. Abortion had to get within inches, literally, of infanticide before enough people woke up to the horror to finally stop one particularly grisly procedure. And easy divorce? Nobody is even seriously addressing it in the legislatures anymore.

The one way ratchet on social policy has to be addressed. It protects too many destructive reforms.

Posted by TMLutas at January 5, 2004 10:31 AM