ABSTRACT
In July 2003, Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum responded to the decriminalization of sodomy in Lawrence v. Texas by warning USA Today readers that the ruling would initiate a domino effect, with marriage the next great American institution annihilated by an activist Supreme Court. “Every civilization since the beginning of man has recognized the need for marriage,” Rick Santorum claimed. “Furthermore, it’s just common sense that marriage is the union of a man and a woman.” Linking marriage with citizenship and civil rights, the marital metaphor became a standard way of thinking and talking about the new nation. As Nancy Cott argues, “A commitment to monogamous marriage on a Christian model lodged deep in American political theory, as vivid as belief in popular sovereignty or in voluntary consent of the governed or in the necessity of a government of laws.”.
