WWFD?

Virginia Postrel summons the ghost of a “dead Austrian economist” to participate in the debate over gay marriage:

[Friedrich] Hayek wrote eloquently about the useful authority of culture and the dangers of a social-engineering state seeking to crush the organic arrangements of society,” noted NRO’s Jonah Goldberg. “It seems to me that the conservative argument against gay marriage is often the true Hayekian one.”

But Hayek was also a classical liberal, appreciative of the importance, to both individuals and societies, of Millsian “experiments in living.” He believed that social and economic institutions did and should evolve as human beings learned more about the world and each other. “While stressing that social institutions — themselves the result of an evolutionary process — cannot and should not be simply thrown out and redesigned at will, Hayek insisted that we run terrible risks when we seek to limit the choices people make,” countered Reason’s Nick Gillespie. “That’s because the act of choosing is the very basis of a flourishing society.”

A fascinating article — check it out.