Nick – I largely agree with you. Look at the backlash in the polls on the gay stuff, the society is recoiling from what it sees as a rush to mainstreaming. This is just one more indication of why we shouldn’t rely on the courts for issues like this.

But what I would add is that I’d have a lot more respect for Levine’s position if I believed her and her kind when they say they want to privatize all social institutions. But, the fact is that if the private sector (aka the civil society) — churches, schools, neighborhoods — started to stigmatize club crawlers and drag queens, the sexual liberationists would claim that the state must step in and stop the private sector “oppressors.” They would demand that the St. Patrick’s Day Parade be forced to allow transgender biker sluts or whatever. They would insist that local merchants couldn’t refuse to hire drag queens. In other words, I just don’t believe many on the liberationist left when they say they want the government to “get out” of the “selective legitimacy” business. What they want is for the government to save the deviants from the application of selective legitimacy wherever it rears its judgmental head. I know that Charles Murray’s form of libertarianism allows for the Burkean “little platoons” to apply selective legitimacy when necessary.