A Court ruling only The Wall Street Journal could love

Note:  The following was sent to The Wall Street Journal's editorial page editor.  Needless to say, it was a little to "out there" for The Journal's tastes.

A ruling only The Wall Street Journal could love

My, my, my, the view from your perch on the Avenue of the Americas must be horrifying:  Soon Heather’s two mommies and Larry’s two daddies will be infiltrating the local school board, whether it’s on the Main Line or Westport, Wellesley, Grosse Point, Shaker Heights, Lake Forest, Highland Park or South Pasadena, Newport Beach and Mercer Island.

Next thing you know the gays and lesbians will be preaching family values, saying it’s imperative that children be nurtured by, horrors of all horrors, two parents who are actually married – to each other no less!  Only now the gender of those parents is a non-issue.

Seriously, what are we, the heterosexual, middle class community, to do?  Head to the hills, run for lives?

I can appreciate the legal qualms the distinguished editors of The Journal’s editorial page have with the Supreme Court’s ruling on same-gender marriage.  It’s another incident of judicial activism and, in some cases, runs rough shod over states’ rights, especially those states that have deemed marriage only legal when it’s between a man and a woman.

But as my late, great mother suggested, let’s take 10 deep breaths and consider the issue.

The ruling’s upside is something one might think The Journal’s editorial page could celebrate:  It significantly reduces the role of the government, whether it’s federal, state, county or municipal.  

In other words, what the Supreme Court did is deregulate the marriage market.  Isn’t that what you want, less government, or did I miss something?

Here’s what The Journal’s editorial page might enjoy:  The Court put marriage in a place that many a liberal likely never considered.  They made it perfectly competitive, allowing anyone to marry anyone, regardless of their gender. 

How long before the Democrats start screaming for regulation?  Five years?  Ten?  Want to put a wager on it?

Now imagine the competition.  You’re single and you’re really serious about someone who doesn’t share your gender.  You’ll need to work that much harder – the details of which, for the sake of decorum, we can keep to ourselves – to gain their affection; otherwise, they just might turn to someone whose gender they share.  After all, now they have a choice.

The same is true if it’s a guy trying to get the guy or the gal trying to get the gal.  And let’s not forget the transgendered.  They’re in this market, too, winning and losing, like everyone else.

Who knew marriage was a market?  But soon, very soon, the liberals will know it is.  And then The Journal’s opinion editors will have the last laugh.  But will they call for regulation?  Doubtful!

Douglas R. Page is the co-author, with the late Philip L. Kilbride, a former Bryn Mawr College anthropologist, of Plural Marriage for Our Time:  A Reinvented Option? Second Edition, published by Praeger, Santa Barbara, Calif., 2012.