However:

Gay marriage, to the extent it is legalized, will not itself cause the cultural sky to fall, even if more heterosexuals do begin to let Savage’s nonmonagamous “semi-open” pattern define their marriages.

What will cause the sky to fall is the lawyers and the jurisprudence. The autonomy imperatives embedded in decisions like Casey, Lawrence, etc., logically will require us to allow polygamy, and worst of all, “marriage-lite” for the growing subset of heterosexuals convinced they have “the non-marrying kind” of sexual orientation. It does not matter if most gays and most swingin’ heteros and most polygamy-desirers seek reasonable compromise in what they demand from the law–all it takes is for a few of them to employ lawyers for their ends. Anthony Kennedy and co. have already laid the groundwork for demanding the legal recognition of any sort of marriage-like and self-definition-involved contract by society. God help us when enough of the non-marrying-kind heteros begin to figure this out.