Every discussion of gay marriage should begin with a recognition of its historical radicalness, its exceptionality. Heterosexual marriage has been the fundamental unit of human sociability for thousands of years, a common thread running through otherwise disjunctive cultures and wide-ranging ethnic diversity. Wherever one lands on the issue of same-sex marriage, there can be no gainsaying its extraordinariness. It’s also clear that same-sex marriage is a culmination of a long-brewing development, an unspooling of essential modern premises. The relentless logic of modernity is unrestrained individuality, the lonesome sovereignty of the singular person. The pith of matrimony is natural gregariousness, our...
