Your third preference might be “I won’t let my child play at his friend’s house, because he’ll be exposed to an immoral living arrangement,” but I sure hope it won’t be, given how cruel it would be to your child and to his friend. (And would you then do the same as to your child’s friends whose mothers are living with their boyfriends, or engaged in other forms of what you see as sexual misconduct?)

(The Volokh Conspiracy, A Hypothetical for Conservative Opponents of Recognizing Same-Sex Marriage)

When Volokh says “given how cruel it would be to your child and to his friend,” he somewhat foolishly steals a base (I say this knowing he could eat many of my policy preferences for lunch and ask for a helping of hash on the side). Has he never heard of tact, that indispensable friend to decency? Or of discretion?

If you’ve been teaching these to your children, will you not be able to (1) remind them such things are not for public discussion, but are “in the family”; (2) find a way to suggest they play at school, on your watch at a playground, in your home, or some other time, without making an issue of it; (3) find a way, should it become necessary, to make your wishes as parent known to the other parents/guardians/caretakers, with the full expectation that they will respect them, and the serious understanding that no decent person would insist that parents entrust their children to them?

Should not such things be the givens in civil society?