I’m not particularly fond of gays and I don’t really care to see them be able to get married. As far as I know, there was no gay marriage at the time the Constitution was written so I don’t see why our laws must allow for it now.
However, five states currently offer gay marriage and GA isn’t one of them so I say let them move to one of those states and away from here, problem solved.
MaikU, I think you’re splitting hairs here. End the state regulation of the marriage institution and people will just call the partnership contracts “marriage contracts”. It will still be marriage. I don’t see what the problem is. It’s State intervention that is problem, not the social relationships or the name.
I think DD5 hit the nail on the head by pointing out that the problem is the state monopoly on social institutions. The state pits us against each other when our true enemy is the state.
If two adults consent to binding each-other to monogamy, that’s their business. What they call this practice, be it marriage, partnership, or dociousaliexpiisticfragicalirupus, it’s nothing more than a capitalist act between consenting adults which “society” has no business mandating, prohibiting, regulating, or subsidizing. Just get the state out of it and we can stop going at each others throats.
I’m not particularly fond of gays and I don’t really care to see them be able to get married. As far as I know, there was no gay marriage at the time the Constitution was written so I don’t see why our laws must allow for it now.
I’m not particularly fond of Snuggies, but I don’t object to people who want to buy them or their advertisement. Your type of meddling in other people’s affairs is what’s called being a bigot.
MaikU, I think you’re splitting hairs here. End the state regulation of the marriage institution and people will just call the partnership contracts “marriage contracts”.
Marriage is not a real contract, it’s state granted privilege. Yes, end the state regulation and whole “marriage” become simple partnership contract. When I said I am against all marriage, it meant that I am against “state, which is providing this service.”
It will still be marriage. I don’t see what the problem is. It’s State intervention that is problem, not the social relationships or the name.
Of course you can call partnership contracts “a marriage”, but the very important thing to understand is what marriage means in statist society - it’s privilege. There are many advantages of marrying someone and these advantages affects other people, whose money are stolen through taxes etc. I am not against a word “marriage”, no matter who is using it: hetero or homo couple. If gay wanted to call their partnership contracts a marriage, so be it.
I agree with almost everyone here, that real problem is the State, not marriage, which is (or at least should be) a simple service.
P.S. also very important thing is that State can do whatever it wants, because State is force. And if libertarian/anarchist claims, that State should allow gay marriage he is a hypocrite. It’s like when atheists whine about churches not paying taxes: “oh, I am forced to pay taxes, so religious nuts must pay taxes too, hurr durr”. Abolish the state and many problems will be solved. Not instantly, of course
I know that most people in hear are at least handling their views in a libertarian way, and don’t want to use the state as a weapon against gays, but the level of dislike towards homosexuals in this thread I find a bit disturbing.
Why so much angst?
Do you spend much time around gay people?
I used to work in Chelsea, one of the gayest places in America after the Castro district. It wasn’t a big deal.
I would consider myself gay-neutral. I don’t have any gay friends, but I don’t ‘abhor their lifestyle’ either, and would have no problem serving a gay couple or buying goods from a gay owner.
I think this is the best side of libertarianism. That EVEN when libertarians abhor a certain lifestyle, they still don’t want to pass laws to discriminate against them. Its easy for the progressive types to be for ‘equal rights for gays’ they generally have a tacit approval of the lifestyle. I think its much more honorable to see someone who isn’t a big fan of gays stand up for their rights as humans.
Also, the way marriage works in this country, its not a union between a man and a woman, its a union between a man, a woman, and the state.
I don’t think its so black and white.
Yes, of course the principled libertarian position should be ‘get the state out of marriage.’ But people are not going to get that nuanced message. They are just going to think thats a cover to be against gay marriage since you know there is no way in hell that the state is getting out of all marriage anytime soon. I think in the short run, libertarians could be a lot more attractive to gays and other lefty folk if they took the short side big tent stance of “given that the state isn’t getting out of marriage anytime soon, the state should not discriminate against sexual preference”
In the 60s would you have been against the public parts of the civil rights act? The true libertarian position isn’t wether or not the state should have white only and colored only buses or drinking fountains, its that the state should not be in the position of providing buses or drinking fountains. That was not going to be winning over too many fans, and would have been called out as a cover for racism.
So are you guys married? Do you plan to get married?
" I think in the short run, libertarians could be a lot more attractive to gays and other lefty folk if they took the short side big tent stance of “given that the state isn’t getting out of marriage anytime soon, the state should not discriminate against sexual preference”"
That the State should not be allowed to discriminate since it’s a “public” entity is also inconsistent with libertarian thought.
There can be no freedom without the right to discriminate. So why should the State not be allowed to discriminate, while private entities can do whatever they want? The answer is that what the State simply has no right to discriminate or not to discriminate. It has no right to hold a legal monopoly on the institution of marriage in the first place. Taking a stance in this or that direction doesn’t get you closer to the libertarian ideal. On the contrary, it reaffirms the right of the State to monopolize the institution of marriage.
Why does it have to be called “marriage”? It’s just a financial contractual agreement.
I want governments to protect property rights and enforce contracts. If I want to marry my dog; and my dog is capable of reading, understanding, and signing contracts; then the rights we each obtain through contracts (which I happen to call a “marriage”) should be upheld. It is the same even if I enter further marriages with my sister and mother.
I also don’t want the government to redistribute wealth. It doesn’t make sense to me that two people should be given free money or have more or less money stolen from them just because the government prefers certain combinations of genitals over others.
But I agree with the mayor May Kadoody on the Sarah Silverman show. Brunch should be outlawed as it is an unnatural marriage between breakfast and lunch.
Because we all know that food meals are the same thing as relationships between people.
You’re trying to nitpick at a bigger argument. If you seriously want to marry your dog, move to Thailand to do it.
This whole post must be a joke.
Because we all know that food meals are the same thing as relationships between people.
He was just mocking bigots like yourself who call two people who love each other and want to cohabitate unnatural. Guess what, people were having gay sex or living “as the opposite sex” long before you were born. I thought his comment was rather funny.
You’re trying to nitpick at a bigger argument.
Where’s the argument? All I see is you airing your bigotry. Libertarians will defend your right to associate with who you want, but you have no right to tell me who to associate with.
MaikU, Ok then, we are in accord. It was just a semantics quibble.
In my opinion, people like you should have any right to seperate themselves from the rest of society. If all racists, homophobes, religious extremists, socialists and fascists just grouped together somewhere and stopped trying to force everyone else to live by their ideology, we would probably have a much happier world.
Seriously, discrimination against peaceful people is just plain stupid and uneconomical. If everybody just cooperated without thinking about what people are doing in private or what skin color they have, our society would be much wealthier.
“It’s not fair to act as if people who don’t support gay marriage are the ones who are getting divorced. Most people who are against gay marriage tend to be against divorce as well, only to a lesser extent.”
Yes, just like Rush Limbaugh (just got married for the FOURTH time) and the slimy Newt Gingrich who is currently in his THIRD marriage.
Now who’s thinking as a collectivist?
“Now who’s thinking as a collectivist?”
You
“Now who’s thinking as a collectivist?”
My point was this: The religious conservative non-thinkers that blindly believe what these morons tell them to believe probably don’t even know that these two hypocrites have been married and divorced several times over. So which destroys the concept of “marriage” more, getting divorced 3 or 4 times, or allowing two private individuals to enter into a voluntary, contractual aggreement?
No.