And one folks like Andrew Sullivan might consider, from a reader:

Jonah:
As one of those social-cons dismayed at The Corner’s sodomy law bashing, I can see the point. Here is another in your favor: Had we Neanderthals pushed our legislature to repeal the sodomy law we would have avoided writing the right to sodomize into the Constitution altogether. In essence, we played into their hands by overreaching and established a new right that will be used to justify and support all sorts of other rights to come in the future. Crap.

My response: This captures a big part of my argument about gay marriage and the all-or-nothing opposition. If conservatives don’t provide an alternative arrangement — civil unions of some kind — then they are in effect gambling that in 5 years or 10 or at any other time in the future the courts or congress won’t recognize gay marriage entirely. A compromise on the issue would/could preclude losing the argument entirely and having same-sex marriages as the law of the land. Such a compromise might also have the added benefit of doing the right thing.