2
loyalty are equally apparent among critics of the war, some of whom believe that fidelity
to American ideals requires prosecuting the war on terror in a different manner, others of
whom reject the war entirely as the all-too predictable undertaking of a flawed regime.
2
In international affairs, loyalty is clearly at stake in a number of contemporary
disputes. Political scientists argue about such current hot topics as globalization,
sovereignty, and cosmopolitanism. Politicians debate the Kyoto treaty, the International
Criminal Court, and the role of international institutions more generally. But loyalty is an
equally important problem in our domestic politics. A variety of issues could illustrate
this claim, but perhaps the most important is the politics of the family. No problem has
so damaged the fabric of American life over the past few decades as the breakdown of the
family. The ties that bind parents to children and husbands and wives to each other have
eroded badly, and though explanations of this fact and proposed responses to it vary
widely, there is by now ample evidence that family breakdown has not increased the
happiness of those involved.
3
Here too our disagreements reveal our perplexity about just
what, if anything, loyalty might require of us or why it might be a desirable virtue for
people to possess. Consider the current debate over homosexual marriage, which the
Supreme Court's recent decision in Lawrence v. Texas, striking down a Texas law that
criminalized homosexual sodomy, has launched into its decisive phase. In that debate,
supporters of homosexual marriage sometimes claim that formalizing the practice will
strengthen the ties of loyalty that ought to characterize marriage by permitting more
people to enjoy them; opponents, by contrast, argue that the logic of homosexual
marriage, by breaking the link between marriage and procreation, will transform the
Convention