Reading Ross Douthat’s astoundingly feeble attempt to justify opposition to gay marriage only made me think of a passage from Nietzsche:
[O]ne lied, mendaciously inventing reasons for these laws, simply to avoid admitting that one had become used to these laws and no longer wanted things to be different. The same process occurs, and always has occurred, in every prevalent morality and religion: the reasons and purposes for habits are always lies that are added only after some people begin to attack these habits and to ask for reasons and purposes. At this point the conservatives of all ages are thoroughly dishonest: they add lies.