First a funny story about Ontario. In 1996, the Ontario Court of appeal effectively struck down laws forbidding women from appearing topless in public.
And then everybody got bored and everything went back to normal. It turns out the overwhelming majority of women aren't interested in baring their breasts in public. I've long wondered if the same thing wouldn't happen with same-sex marriage.
Now we have a study of the Netherlands (NB: that link downloads a PDF), where same-sex marriage has been available for a decade now, that confirms my suspicions. It doesn't change anything at all. The vast majority of same-sex couples don't actually want to get married.
So who lost? Everybody.
My guess is that the advocates who fought so hard to win these battles will soon realize that they have won a Pyrrhic victory. Even when they win the field, they get nothing worth keeping and nothing they can keep. And the price they have paid for this wasn't worth it.
Meanwhile, the defence-of-marriage crowd probably drove the final nail in the social conservative coffin with this struggle. The argument that we need to stop this or else marriage will be destroyed is now dispatched for good.
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