PhoboQuotable - David Frum

"Bristol Palin is exactly the type of girl who would have been pushed into a shotgun marriage in 1964: Her parents were leading citizens first of their town, then their state, now the nation. Their position and reputation would have absolutely precluded an unwed mother in the family. Their friends and neighbors (and maybe more important, their daughter's friends and neighbors) would have enforced the expectation: marriage first, children second.

"Not any more. Today, nobody expects it -- quite the contrary, when Levi reveals himself to be a jerk again, every People magazine reader in the country fully sympathizes with Bristol chucking him out, again. Get married for the sake of the children? Unwed motherhood as a disgrace? What is this, the Middle Ages?

"[Judge Vaughn] Walker's decision was a twist in a complex legal story that stretches back to the 1990s. Many more twists lie ahead. The judge's decision will almost certainly be reversed on appeal. (Walker seems to know it, too: He suspended his own decision from going into effect until after the appellate court had its say.) But we don't have to wait for the courts to finish their work to know the answer to the big question. The harm feared from same-sex marriage has already arrived: Whether same-sex marriage is accepted or not, opposite-sex marriage as a norm and expectation has already collapsed." - Conservative columnist David Frum, writing for CNN.