Over the weekend, Greenwald congratulated Limbaugh on his fourth marriage:
The disparity is between (a) what same-sex opponents such as Limbaugh claim they advocate (the law's recognition of only Traditional Marriages) and (b) what they actually advocate (having the law recognize completely untraditional marriages, such as Gingrich and Limbaugh's multiple, serial unions). They don't really advocate the law's recognition of Traditional Marriage, as they claim; rather, they only advocate that the law bar the untraditional marriages they don't want to enter into (same-sex marriages) while recognizing the ones they do (multiple, serial "marriages"). The point is that one cannot oppose same-sex marriage on the ground that the law should only recognize Traditional Marriages, while simultaneously demanding that the law recognize third, fourth and other multiple marriages following divorce: at least one cannot do so coherently.
I think many "conservatives" are for serial polygamy basically, with social blessing. But for gays? Not even one blessing for one committed relationship. Not that I'd outlaw divorce but it would be good not to have such blatant double-standards. Joyner follows up:
What we think of as “traditional” marriage is in fact ever-evolving. Even half a century ago, divorce was quite taboo; it’s so commonplace today that virtually no stigma is attached, even among fairly conservative people. A quarter century ago, it was simply expected that the wife stay at home and raise the children if at all economically feasible; now, that’s fairly unusual.
I suspect that, less than a quarter century from now, same-sex marriage will be so normalized as to fit comfortably within the definition of “traditional.”