Happy New Year, Mickey

I really do get under his skin, I guess. He argues that all my positions on every topic are related to my "obsession" with marriage rights for gay couples. He also insists that my own record of passion on such subjects as marriage and torture renders my espousal of a "conservatism of doubt" insincere. (Earth to Mickey: Why on earth was I was studying Oakeshott in the 1980s before I'd even heard of gay marriage?) Of course, there's not much I can do to deny an unrebuttable assertion that my view of everything is a function of my sexual orientation. But I think any reader of "The Conservative Soul" will see that the question of homosexuality is a minuscule part of my argument, and that reductionism of the Kaus-type says much more about the reductionists than it does about the quality of the arguments I proffer.

As for my passion about marriage equality, I plead guilty but I do not plead dogma. My first argument for marriage was occasioned by my worry about the impact domestic partnerships could have on marriage as a heterosexual institution. My book, "Virtually Normal" is about as reasoned as any public argument can be. My discussion of the origins of homosexuality - the chapter, "Virtually Abnormal", in "Love Undetectable" - is extremely respectful of even the theories of "reparative therapists." Moreover, a dogmatist would surely not go to the lengths of editing an anthology on marriage equality, and publishing Bill Bennett, Dennis Prager, Maggie Gallagher, Stanley Kurtz and David Frum on the question, in the spirit of open debate. As for torture, I guess it is so basic an issue of individual liberty and human decency that it is indeed one area where I am adamant - but again, I have done all I can to amass the empirical evidence and historical record to make my case.

Then there's Mickey's attempt, along the lines of Glenn Reynolds, to dismiss the notion that there is a religious right in America at all. The influence of Biblical inerrantism, the explosion of mega-churches, the increasing strength of fundamentalism, the incorporation of the religious right into the heart of the GOP: all this is hooey, according to Kaus. There are other reasons, he argues, for opposing gay coupling:

Even in a highly Republican town like Plano, in other words, the religious objection to gay marriage isn't the crucial objection. Fear that moral entropy will envelop your family's children is the crucial objection.

A question: what does Mickey mean by "moral entropy"? And why does allowing gay marriage correlate with it? Wouldn't encouraging marriage be an antidote to "moral entropy"? And if you concede that, then how is the opposition to such marriages not, at root, a religious one? Over to you, Mickey.