Thirty years ago Hollywood and television began touting a single line about marriage: “A marriage license is just a piece of paper.”

It’s just a piece of paper, and it doesn’t matter. Fall in or out of love with whoever you want. Live together, if you want. Run it through the shredder, if you want. It really does not matter.

Now, Hollywood might claim that they were simply reflecting the culture, but there’s no doubt that TV and movies have a tremendous impact on society; otherwise advertising would not be a multi-billion dollar business. And there’s no doubt that the message Hollywood pushed about marriage has influenced today’s culture.

The marriage rate is declining as more and more couples choose to live together rather than marry. For those who do marry, the divorce rate is through the roof. Forty percent of the children born this year will be to single mothers. Absent fathers evade child support every day.

Marriage is no longer expected to be a lifelong commitment made before God and a crowd of witnesses. It is no longer held sacred. It is no longer considered the best environment for raising a child, even though study after study indicates otherwise. Why? Because thirty years ago a group of loud voices decided marriage was nothing more than a license written on a piece of paper.

Today those same loud voices are telling us that piece of paper can be re-written to include anything they want. That may not be the verbatim message of the same-sex marriage push, but that is what lies at its core: If marriage can be something other than the union of one man and one woman—if love is truly the only thing that matters in marriage—then what is to stop it from being further redefined? What is to prevent the definition of marriage from be broadened? If it can be between two men or two women, why can’t it be between three men or three women? Why can’t it be between two immediate blood relatives? Where do we redraw the boundaries, and how do we make that decision?

There is no answer. If marriage can be redefined to include same-sex marriage, the only things preventing it from being further redefined are the moral reservations of the people drawing up the new definition.

Thirty years ago a lot of people cheered at the proclamation that marriage was nothing more than a piece of paper. I’m afraid, though, that what sounded good at the time may be producing a bitter harvest today.