The May 13 Sun Journal contained two columns about the marriage debate which make an instructive comparison.

Leonard Pitts Jr., as is his custom, presented a predictable, liberal view. Although President Barack Obama’s gay marriage endorsement may have been inadvertently forced by Joe Biden’s supportive remarks, it was, nevertheless, courageous. More detached liberal journalists acknowledge that calculations of political advantage may also have played a part in the decision.

On the other hand, most liberals agree with Pitts that the majority of North Carolina’s voters are yahoos for affirming traditional marriage. The god, Progress, has ruled against them and progress must eventually prevail.

Cal Thomas, on the same page, presented a more complicated and nuanced view.

Thomas is a traditional Christian, holding traditional views on marriage, but his analysis addresses the political problem, i.e., a great many people who uphold marital traditions in theory do not adhere to them in practice.

He cited studies showing that divorce rates among born-again Christians are virtually identical to those among people “non-born again” (or never “born”) adults.

The problem is not such that progressives are attacking the institution, as it is that traditionalists are not defending it. Their beliefs do not reliably dictate their actions.

That marriage demands a great deal from people is not a new discovery.

Dr. Sam Johnson, an orthodox Anglican and stout Tory, had this to say in 1772: “It is so far from being natural for a man and woman to live in a state of marriage that we find all the motives which they have for remaining in that connections, and the restraints which civilized society imposes to prevent separation, are hardly sufficient to keep them together.”

A couple hundred years earlier an anonymous Englishman expressed what you might call the traditional anti-marriage case in blunt, poetic form:

“To hang or wed; both hath an hour;

And whether it be; I am well sure

Hanging is the better of the twain

Sooner done, and shorter pain.”

Martin Luther supported marriage with cold realism: “The state of matrimony is the chief in the world after religion; but people shun it because of its inconveniences, like one who, running out of the rain, falls into the river.”

Keep in mind that these quotes originate from a time when Christian views of marriage prevailed everywhere in Europe and any call for gay marriage would have been cut short by the public executioner. The only public debate in those days was whether it was a sacrament or a binding contract.

This is not to say that the marriage imperative originated with Christianity.

Cicero, who lived and died before Christ, argued that “The first bond of society is marriage; the next, children; then, the family.”

Three hundred years before him the Greek philosopher, Menander, gave his opinion that “Marriage, to tell the truth, is an evil, but it is a necessary evil.”

The Chinese sage, Confucius, agreed on the necessity, observing that “Marriage is at the bottom of all government.”

All these quotes directly, or indirectly, support the idea that marriage really is a compelling interest for governments. Read accounts of collapsing governments, e.g., cases when officials and police flee foreign invasion and you discover that the only surviving social bond is the family. Husband, wives, mothers, fathers and children cling together amidst the chaos.

Thomas believes in this compelling interest. He accepts the Christian case for marriage.

Setting that aside, his column addressed the political realities. “If conservative Christians don’t accept the opinions and practices of those who favor same-sex marriage, why should gays accept theirs? The fight centers on who can muster the most votes, not whether something is objectively true and, more importantly, who gets to make the rules.”

Here, I have to disagree in part. The “fight” is within the culture, and government rules can have only a marginal effect on personal decisions and a culture’s evolution.

They are only one part of Dr. Johnson’s restraints. We can’t look to the police to defend the marriage bond.

John Frary, a 2008 GOP candidate in Maine’s 2nd congressional district, served as associate editor of “The International Military Encyclopedia” and assistant editor of “Continuity, A Journal of History” while teaching history and political science at Middlesex County College in New Jersey for 32 years.