Now, there is one area where things get more complicated. As I’ve argued on numerous occasions, when the government forces traditionalist business owners to provide services for same-sex weddings in violation of their religious beliefs, that is an example of government overreach. Calling it “Leviathan” seems like a little much, though I’m happy to describe it as illiberal and un-American.

But simply legalizing same-sex marriage, with proper RFRA protections for its opponents? That’s not tyranny. It’s life in a pluralistic, liberal society. The traditionalists have lost the public argument, fair and square. Losing might be deeply disconcerting for many. But they might take some solace from the fact that, despite many years of trying, they’ve never been able to demonstrate to anyone outside their own ranks that traditional marriages suffer any tangible harm from exposure laws that extend marriage rights to a tiny minority of the population.

The spread of same-sex marriage isn’t the result of a power grab by big government. It’s a response to a pre-political moral and cultural shift on the part of the American people. They are the source of what most troubles traditionalists like Pecknold, not the Leviathan state.