Byzantine:
Sowell, like a lot of American conservatives, still believes in the American experiment. The only unifying principle of a secular, multicultural society is the democratic market-state, which to the American conservative perspective has been “lost” and therefore must be recaptured if the experiment is to be successful. American progressives believe the same thing from their perspective, and they are currently the ones who control the levers of power.
Sowell just doesn’t want to take that next step: that the traditions and principles he holds dear can only receive their due through the pre-state institutions of organic society.
My point is that he has no principles. Once one claims that the state’s “vested interests” are what makes something correct, then they’ve thrown that out the window. Even to say conservative principles would be false, in this case. The American state is currently run by the democrats. If their interests are what is important to him, I would not say that he is founding his decision about marriage licensing (which I’ve described as basically an extortion of an institution if not simply a corruption of free contract) is about conservative principle. He could have easily explained this particular principle, but he did not. He went for the lazy bigotry (that is used by both conservatives and liberals as a shortcut). And it’s clear why he does not believe in “organic society” – he actually believes that people don’t actually want children or marriages… but only do so because The State magically gives a crap about future populations (news to me, after looking at all the zeros on the current national debt.)
Are you forgetting who gives the marriage license? Government gives the “right” to marriage, and therefore has what he calls the “vested interest” because they are the ones giving the permission in this case.
Does it make it right that government has some say? No.
Do I almost feel like that is the direction that Dr. Sowell is leaning? Yes.