With its decision in Obergefell v. Hodges, the Supreme Court has brought the sexual revolution to its apex—a redefinition of our civilization’s primordial institution, cutting its link to procreation and declaring sex differences meaningless. The court has usurped the authority of the people, working through the democratic process, to define marriage. And it has shut down debate just as we were starting to hear new voices—gay people who agree that children need their mother and their father, and children of same-sex couples who wish they knew both their mom and dad.

If the polls are right, there has also been an astonishingly swift change in public opinion. Most Americans now think that justice, equality, or at least good manners requires redesigning marriage to fit couples (and at this point, just couples) of the same sex. Or at least they’ve been intimidated into saying so.

I argue in my just-released book, “Truth Overruled: The Future of Marriage and Religious Freedom,” that we are sleepwalking into an unprecedented cultural and social revolution. A truth acknowledged for millennia has been overruled by five unelected judges. The consequences will extend far beyond those couples newly able to obtain a marriage license.

If our society teaches a falsehood about marriage, it is harder for people to live out the truth of marriage. Marital norms make no sense, as a matter of principle, if what makes a marriage is merely intense emotional feeling, an idea captured in the bumper-sticker slogan, “Love makes a family.” There is no reason that mere consenting adult love has to be permanent or limited to two persons, much less sexually exclusive. So, as people internalize this new vision of marriage, marriage will be less and less a stabilizing force.

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