NY High Court Says No to Gay Marriage

Judge Robert Smith said New York's marriage law is constitutional and clearly limits marriage to between a man and a woman. Any change in the law should come from the state Legislature, he said.

"We do not predict what people will think generations from now, but we believe the present generation should have a chance to decide the issue through its elected representatives," Smith wrote.

Whole story, via Fox News, here. I'm sympathetic to the idea that deciding issues such as this one via legislatures minimizes social disruption and backlash (abortion is the poster-child for the dynamic in which court-imposed rules supposedly short-circuit the legislative process and cause all sorts of problems). Yet it always seems to be folks who are not in the minority that advance that sort of argument. It's easy to counsel gays who want to get hitched to hurry up and wait if you're not gay, or to sign on to a status quo social contract that gives you the shit end of the stick if you're not gay. Which is not to say the courts should be deciding all manner of social policy; it's just to raise a point inspired by the judge's refusal to predict what future generations will think down the line (especially since it seems absolutely certain to me that future generations will have absolutely no problem with gay marriage).

Reason made the Hayekian case for gay marriage here and here.