Ten Years After Obergefell: The Cultural Fallout of Redefining Marriage

Ten years ago last Thursday, the Supreme Court, in its 5–4 ruling in Obergefell v. Hodges, legalized gay marriage. Though the campaign for gay marriage was to a considerable extent elite-driven, it owed at least some of its popular success to arguments, such as those advanced by Andrew Sullivan starting in 1989, that gay marriage could be a bourgeois, even a small-c conservative thing.

I made the case over the weekend, however, that there was a germ of radicalism even in such arguments. Over the past ten years, we have seen the result, most notably in the suspiciously immediate rise of transgenderism.

About the Author

Jack Butler

Jack Butler is a former submissions editor at National Review.

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Ten years ago last Thursday, the Supreme Court, in its 5–4 ruling in Obergefell v. Hodges, legalized gay marriage. Though the campaign for gay marriage was to a considerable extent elite-driven, it owed at least some of its popular success to arguments, such as those advanced by Andrew Sullivan starting in 1989, that gay marriage could be a bourgeois, even a small-c conservative thing.

I made the case over the weekend, however, that there was a germ of radicalism even in such arguments. Over the past ten years, we have seen the result, most notably in the suspiciously immediate rise of transgenderism.