The grinding down of the family is not merely the result of opting for a contractarian model but of inviting the state to take control of marriage in the name of individual freedom. Freedom, of course, is just what is being lost, as the neo-liberal state evolves its tyrannical power by hollowing out a place for itself inside the husk of human-rights discourse. The advent of same-sex marriage makes bastards of us all, and as a nation of bastards we are all wards of the state.

How so? The change in definition uncouples marriage from procreation. From now on, then, no one will be born a bastard and everyone will be born a bastard. From now on, the connection between biological parenthood and legal parenthood will be supported by no institution. The claims of blood will not have the same standing at law that they once did. Natural relationships will not be primary at law; legal constructs will take their place. . . Everyone, for legal purposes, will be first of all a ward of the state, and the state will become our primary community, as Rousseau intended it to.

Douglas Farrow in Nation of Bastards: Essays on the end of marriage