Posts in "gay marriage"

By Tim Bertram at 7:11AM

Sep 9, 2011

Minnesota's Gay Marriage Amendment

Currently the state of Minnesota has a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage on the ballot for next November and it has been making a lot of people very angry. Naturally, we have been hearing a lot of the GOP and GLTB talking points (and some other weird stuff), but I read this in the Pioneer Press the other day and it got me to think about why conservatives should support legalizing gay marriage:

America is about freedoms... Like you used not to be able to marry somebody of a different race, and that is just ridiculous now. So I think that its just a matter of time... People will be surprised that it was ever an issue.

This is a quote from a 19-year old resident of Minneapolis who visited the state fair this past week, and I think what she says brings up two very important parts to the gay marriage debate that conservatives need to consider.

First, "America is about freedoms." Conservatives see themselves as defenders of freedoms from the left and the government, yet this particular freedom is just a little too much for them. You cannot pick and choose what freedoms people can and cannot have -- you are either free or not. I am a firm believer that once you compromise on one part of a freedom, you compromise on 100% of that principle. The principle here is people having the liberty to free association, and this can be with your employer, organizations, or who you choose to marry.

The second point is that marriage laws have a clear history of being used to limit the rights of minorities, such as Jim Crow laws which prevented interracial marriages. Likewise, laws which outlaw gay marriage limit the right of free association of the LGBTQ minority. Conservatives do not want to be remembered 40 years from now as the people that held back the rights of those with a different sexual orientation, just like we look back with shame on those who held back the rights of those with a different skin color. Moreover, it's always important to remember that if you give the government the right to limit the freedom of a group you don't like, there's no reason to think that same power won't be used against you somewhere down the line.

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By Don Rasmussen at 3:33PM

Jul 18, 2011

Rudy Giuliani: Blind Squirrel

The old adage that even a blind squirrel will occasionally find a nut seems to fit former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani's appearance on CNN Sunday morning:

...[the] Republican Party would be well advised to get the heck out of people's bedrooms and let these things get decided by states...Stay out of it... And I think we'd be a much more successful political party if we stuck to our economic, conservative roots and our idea of a strong, assertive America that is not embarrassed to be the leader of the world.

Oh well, it was nice while it lasted. Meanwhile, America's mayor is rumored to be considering another presidential run. Last time he spent $52 million and won one delegate. He was recently quoted as saying, "This time I'd run to win." Apparently last time he was running to finish seventh and, having succeeded wildly, plans to step it up a notch.

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By Wesley Messamore at 1:23PM

Aug 17, 2010

Privatizing Marriage: A Libertarian Solution

The argument over gay marriage, like many arguments in America, has been falsely presented as a single, binary issue: one is either for or against legalizing gay marriage.

On one side of the dichotomy are the "social conservatives" who believe that marriage can only exist between a man and a woman, and that the law should reflect that reality.

On the other side are gay marriage proponents, who believe that two people of the same gender have every right to disagree with social conservatives about what marriage is, and that our nation's laws should include their definition of marriage as well.

But one thing that pundits, activists, and politicians often fail to consider is that the legal debate over gay marriage is distinct from the philosophical debate.

On the Prop 8 Decision

Let's get rid of this problem with a two step solution: get rid of the income tax (and various other government discriminations against the unmarried of all varieties) and return marriage to the private sphere from whence it came.

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By Matt Cockerill at 6:21PM

Nov 4, 2009

Nightly Roundup 11/04/2009

It was a mixed day for the "blue chip" stocks, but a bad day for the dollar.
Pre-Abyss, which states have got the gold? Interesting statistics, though be sure to take into account deficits and debt.
Gentle, hardworking, non-creep/non-parasite Rand Paul is slightly ahead in the KY Primary, according to a poll.
In a creepy Maine referendum, the "conservatives" won the battle of trying to push a set of values upon another people.
George Soros is spending $50 million to promote some weird social democratic ideas among economists.
Meanwhile, friend of YAL Justin Raimondo is right to say Obama's policies in Afghanistan are tantamount to "tossing the coin in."

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By Matt Cockerill at 10:06PM

Sep 6, 2009

Why is gay marriage a "public policy" issue?

Michael Kinsley and David Boaz are right. The best solution (and clearly, the libertarian one) to the gay marriage debate is to privatize the institution altogether.

Though this controversy is very emotional and hot-button, it really doesn't need to be that way. In the free society, gays would be allowed to get married, and I suspect that most people would come to accept their relationships as respectable and legitimate. But if cultural conservatives disagreed, no one would have the right to impose gay marriage on their churches and businesses.