From USA Today, June 26, 2015:

After much build up and prognosticating, the long-awaited Supreme Court decision on marriage has arrived. As expected, some are thrilled with the outcome, while others are deeply disappointed. Amid this sea of conflicting emotions, one thing is certain: The societal debate about marriage will continue.

To assume that the supporters of man-woman marriage will now quietly fade into the night would be a serious miscalculation. Quite the contrary, the movement to reaffirm marriage as a gender-diverse union will endure — and even gain momentum in coming years.

Why? Because the case for man-woman marriage, when carefully considered, has widespread appeal.

• A culture that promotes lifelong marriages between a man and a woman is among society’s greatest tools to lift people out of poverty. This breakdown and disappearance of marriage metastasizes when society views marriage as mere government recognition of a romantic relationship. The reason for this is simple: under such a myopic, modern view of marriage, couples whose romantic feelings fade can easily rationalize a decision to separate, and thus they are less likely to get or stay married. Redefining marriage will only make matters worse, as a group of 100 marriage scholars and another coalition of scholars have recently explained.
• Man-woman marriage predates our government and has always guarded against state intrusion into domestic-relation matters.For instance, marriage automatically identifies the father of a child born to a married woman without requiring invasive paternity determinations. But the redefinition of marriage to include same-sex couples forces the government to become more active in identifying legal parents and assigning parental rights to individuals who are neither a biological mother nor a biological father. Redefining marriage will thus increase the state’s role in family life.
• Reaffirming marriage as a gender-diverse union also appeals to child-rights supporters and people who themselves have been deprived of their mom, their dad or both. Many in this camp are committed to advocating for a culture that embraces the right of every child (barring tragedy or other extreme circumstances) to know and be raised by the man and the woman who together created them.
• Finally, people of faith will remain strong supporters of man-woman marriage. Predictions that the religious faithful will eventually “get over” their views about marriage are profoundly misplaced. Adherents of the Abrahamic religions believe that marriage’s gender complementary is rooted in creation and is an indispensable part of God’s good design to bring about human flourishing.

Read the full article at USA Today: http://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2015/06/26/supreme-court-gay-marriage-decision-debate-on-marriage-column/29325041/