The conservative reaction to Dr. Helen’s Men On Strike is interesting because it is the opposite of their general stance on government creating the wrong incentives. When high income taxes discourage investment and production, conservatives point to the Laffer curve and advise lowering tax rates to rectify the problem. The liberal response to conservatives pointing out that high taxes are strangling the economy is to accuse those responding to the current incentives of being selfish or unpatriotic. We see the same pattern across a slew of issues, including stifling environmental regulations, capital gains taxes, minimum wage laws, and rent control. Liberals tend to want to shame actors into going against their own best interest in order to prop up bad public policy, where conservatives tend to point out the folly of using shame and moral coercion to overcome bad policy. The solution to bad policy, conservatives regularly point out, is to fix the policy, not to try to strong arm companies and individuals to go against their own best interest.
But all of this suddenly changes when the bad policy is regarding marriage. Then the same conservatives who stand ready to offer a detailed lecture on the need to match risk with reward, authority with responsibility, and to have consistent and fair enforcement of contracts suddenly switch to the tactics of a liberal defending a 90% marginal tax rate.
Though the phenomenon is not universal, it is certainly noticeable.