Just as it appears all barriers to "same-sex marriage" in America are falling like dominoes, the world gets a glimpse of what's to come.

It was predictable. I predicted it. Justice Antonin Scalia predicted it.

And it's here — at least as a grand "fairy tale" experiment in Thailand.

Three avowedly gay men got hitched in Thailand on Valentine's Day in what they refer to as a "fairy tale ceremony." That's right — three men, one so-called marriage.

Given the speed at which same-sex marriage has reached acceptance by government, judges, the media, pop culture and cultural institutions, I'm actually surprised it took this long. But indeed, as far as anyone can determine, this is the first time three males have gotten hitched. I'm pretty certain it won't be the last.

It may not be legally recognized — even in the sexually avant-garde land of Thailand — but that is really beside the point for the purpose of this commentary. It's happening. There is demand for it — no matter how small that demand might be.

And that is really the point. Just because people want to participate in an institution designed as a union between one man and one woman in other sexual combinations and numbers, does that make it right?

If we are ready to scrap a 6,000-year-old institution deemed sacred by many, deemed by many to be the cornerstone of natural law and deemed by many to be the most important institution for effective child rearing — an institution, imperfect though it may be, that has served humanity well — how do we do that?

Do we allow citizens of nations and states to make the determination? Do we permit judges to decide? Do we use the legislative process? Or do we just turn our backs and let nature take its course in an anything-goes, come-what-may frenzy?

So far in America, the people have not had much of a voice. The express will of people in more than three-fifths of the states has been overturned with strokes of the pen by unaccountable, unelected federal judges. That's the very definition of tyranny, by the way.

Let me remind you that even Congress' overwhelming acclamation for the Defense of Marriage Act of the 1990s was overturned by the Supreme Court in its supreme wisdom.

The chaos we're experiencing now began with the Lawrence v. Texas case, in which the Supreme Court ruled that anti-sodomy laws were unconstitutional. From there came the descent into a moral free-for-all.

If marriage is redefined as an institution of any two people, regardless of their sex, what comes next? On what basis can a society or a legal system oppose group marriages? On what basis can a society or a legal system forbid polygamy? On what basis can a society or a legal system discourage incest between consenting adults? And then, of course, will come the final domino to fall: On what basis can a society or a legal system prohibit marriages between adults and minors?

But it gets even dicier for those who see marriage primarily as an institution for the protection and raising of healthy children. Because where there is legally recognized marriage there is legally recognized adoption.

It turns out that same-sex marriage has nothing to do with the politically charged phrase "marriage equality" after all. It's about the destruction of the nuclear family — an institution long under assault from totalitarians of every stripe.

You cannot have self-government without the cornerstone institutions of marriage and family. And that's why marriage and family have been attacked and subverted by all types of tyrants — communists, fascists, oligarchs and other assorted despots.

They have always seen stable families as competition to their quest for unlimited power. And that's why this "social revolution" has been so quickly embraced by government. It's just that simple.

We are witnessing the demise of limited government and self-government, and we are entering into an epoch of unimaginable moral chaos in which the only arbiter of right and wrong is the state.

It will be a world, by the way, in which God has no standing.

To find out more about Joseph Farah and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate Web page at www.creators.com.