However, she found his view that the advent of same-sex marriage would bring maturity to gay culture and an end to sexual liberation "disconcerting and a bit sad".

[9] A reviewer for The Economist praised Gay Marriage as "a powerful book, clear, tolerant, and persuasive, never ranting or self-pitying".

He suggested that Rauch was too polite to his opponents, who Garrow believed held "a racist-like loathing of gay people as innately inferior".

Nevertheless, she recommended Gay Marriage to all libraries, describing it as "a timely and readable book that will provoke people on both sides of the argument".

She credited Rauch with "a sophisticated grasp of matrimony as an institution that shapes behavior and provides vital social goods", but faulted his treatment of the relation between marriage and children.

[18] A reviewer for the Washington Blade described Gay Marriage as a "deft and nimble work", written in a "breezy, detailed yet uncluttered style".

[19] Andrew Lister reviewed Gay Marriage in Polity, the journal of the Northeastern Political Science Association.

Nevertheless, he believed that Rauch had failed to consider how this special status might conflict with the liberal values of "civic equality and individual freedom".

[20] In April 2004, the American Enterprise Institute hosted a symposium on Gay Marriage featuring Rauch, the philosopher Michael Novak, and the political scientist Charles Murray.

[21] Essays by the philosopher Susan M. Shell,[22] Rauch,[23] Novak,[24] and Murray[25] subsequently appeared in the institute's journal, The Public Interest.