The Gay Marriage Debate

Economics Political Theory
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They didn’t publish this in the newspaper yet, but I finished it early and figured I’d see what everyone thought.

“I now pronounce you church and state”, by Brian Anderson

A lot of talk lately has gone on about the same-sex marriage debate. Between the almost-repealed “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy and the overturned same-sex marriage ban in California, it has been chaotic, to say the least. The gay community around the world wants the government to recognize the legitimacy of its relationships. Let me explain to you how this is a problem and how we can fix it.

My issue with same-sex marriage derives from my belief in the importance of a traditional family. For me, the point of getting married is to find someone you love with whom you will eventually start a family and raise children, who in turn become the next generation. I believe it is important for children to have one mother and one father and at least one sibling.

While I do agree that certain circumstances are less healthy for children than other ones, there is not a single study out there that can possibly determine my opinion – or anyone else’s - as fact, and it is for this reason that I do not support any piece of legislation that intervenes in the issues of neither marital nor any other personal relationship.

I can’t really imagine the feelings that the gay community might have had when the federal government decided to formally support one marriage arrangement over another, but the closest comparison I can imagine is when the New York Times ran a story earlier this year implying that children shouldn’t have best friends because it’s an unhealthy and possessive attachment.

Man, did that story make me angry. I love my best friend to death. I’d always dreamed of being best friends with someone like Corey Matthews and Shawn Hunter were. And now that I have one, and if they ever passed legislation against being best friends, I’d probably go out in the middle of the streets dancing with a bunch of best friends in protest, too.

But when it comes down to the grain of the relationships I hold, it doesn’t matter what other people think or feel or believe because I know how much I love certain people in my life, for better or for worse.

To all members in the United States House of Representatives: if you are really interested in fighting for freedom over ideology - based on religion or not - I hope you will support the Respect for Marriage Act of 2009, which will repeal the Defense of Marriage Act. I also further recommend adding a provision to the proposed bill that will forbid the government from recognizing any form of marriage as legitimate, thereby ending the formerly endless cycle of the government giving us back our own money after it decides whether to deem us appropriate.

To the gay community: you need to realize that, by forcing the government to recognize same-sex marriage, you are being as forceful and coercive as those who put in place the Defense of Marriage Act in the first place. There is a better fight to be had.

I believe in the invisible hand, both in the market and in society. If same-sex marriage is meant to be, then it will be. Like government intervention has done to our foreign affairs, its intervention in our domestic affairs will be met with newly-found extremists and pointless partisanship regarding an otherwise self-functioning debate that can only be resolved in time.

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Taking one’s freedom back from government by force is heroic. As long as it’s non violent. You wouldn’t be forcing people do things you should have had in the first place. I mean, I rather not have more laws on the book, but a gay marriage law is better then gays not being able to marry. But it would be better to get rid of the marriage laws to begin with.

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You are anti-gays marrying, but not anti-gay marriage, per se? I can respect that, and will return to it in a minute..

My issue with same-sex marriage derives from my belief in the importance of a traditional family. For me, the point of getting married is to find someone you love with whom you will eventually start a family and raise children, who in turn become the next generation. I believe it is important for children to have one mother and one father and at least one sibling.

I am sure you realize the subjectivity here tho.

there is not a single study out there that can possibly determine my opinion – or anyone else’s - as fact,

http://www.nllfs.org/ No, people cannot prove subjective beliefs as facts. But they can show that they are very off-base.

I believe in the invisible hand, both in the market and in society. If same-sex marriage is meant to be, then it will be.

Agreed, which is why we should repeal any law, national or state, that forbids a church from marrying any 2+ people.

At first I thought your argument was going to be “no gay marriage” haha. Which would have seemed really weird coming from a libertarian-ish website. I pretty much agree with your conclusion tho (this is what I was “getting back to”). But I’m not sure about your premises.

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I have similar views in that sense. Gays should be allowed to marry for the same reason I should be able to marry multiple people. My issues on morality may not be in favor in it, but forcing someone to be subject to my morality is just wrong. I don’t like alcohol, should I be able to put a gun to the head of drinkers? No. It’s wrong.

One’s conservative or liberal personal morality, nor your life style choice should not be confused with politics.

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That’s correct. I’m not terribly against gays marrying because my opinion does tend to switch back-and-forth at times, but for the most part I personally support only traditional marriage.

Yes, I do. I write for the opinion section, so I’m allowed to incorporate my beliefs in the columns. Haha, I was hoping people wouldn’t stop reading after the first two-three paragraphs because it does seem to be pro-laws against gay marriage at first.

Exactly how I feel. I don’t drink or do drugs either, and people tend to get mad at me when I say that - especially considering the fact that I’m in college - because they assume that I don’t want them to be allowed to either. I like to compare drugs and gay marriage in terms in my opposing personal vs. ‘political’ beliefs, not to say gay marriage is equivalent to drugs, haha.

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Legalisation of gay ‘marriage’ doens’t make it exist anymore than it would making it legal for a human to grow wings and fly to the moon.

The concept of gay marriage is a contradiction, because marriage is between a man and a woman. No state has any real ability to make it exist.

But if people want to pretend, and play house together, even finding a liberal ‘church’ (or a secular organisation) to say that they are ‘married’, then they shouldn’t be stopped.

During protests about ‘civil unions’ in NZ, a member of the NZ Libertarian party was seen holding a sign ‘repeal the marriage act’. I think this is definitely the best approach.. Besides, it would be cheaper to get married too.

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Consider this.. why don’t we call regular marriage as “traditional marriage” and gay marriage as untraditional or “gay marriage”? Problem solved.

However nobody can own a concept and forbid anyone from using it appealing to antiquity, religion or tradition (since middle ages marriage was between man and woman, yada yada yada). Words are changing, they don’t mean what they used to mean and so on, so I have no problem calling gay union a “marriage”.

I only have problem with state monopoly on marriage, so I am not only against gay marriage (state gay marriage, to be precise), but traditional state marriage too. I like being consistent as much as I can, hehe.

P.S. I used to be pro-gay marriage earlier, but thanks to some folks, I understood the deeper problem in it, than just basic right to act how one wishes.

P.P.S. so now if someone asks my opinion about gay marriage I say that I am against all state marriage, and do not exclude one social group from other.

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The state shouldn’t be in the business of marriage to begin with. Marriage should be treated like any other contract. If people want to marry 5 other people, and their horse (which is presumably their property), they shouldn’t be stopped.

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+1. Whenever I’m posed this question, I simply reply,

“I don’t think it’s the government’s business to acknowledge/unacknowledge any marital unions.”

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Totally agree with MaikU said. My religious definition of definition should not be everyone’s definition for marriage.

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It’s a stupid debate. The state does not sanctify the institution of marriage or recognize love that exists between two parties. Theists have allowed a state to hi-jack one of their most intimate religious rituals. That doesn’t mean we have to go along with it pretending that the state somehow has a right to dictate what is or is not love.

Any one can make their own ceremony and call themselves by whatever name they want. I married some very close friends, outside of the state entirely, about half a year ago. They’re happily living together making a new life. State wasn’t involved whatsoever. They signed their own voluntary contract, and there was a private third party witness(me, among others). Gay people don’t need anyone else’s permission to get married, they can just go do it. Many of them already do.

As long as we think the state is the one who sanctifies marriage, it will always be a political issue. The wrong thing to do here is to take the democratic route and make it mandatory for the state to recognize same sex marriage. The right thing to do is to boycott the state from the marriage process all together. Then it will no longer be an issue in the first place.

Now for the tax benefits that go along with it, well thats another argument all together.

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I don’t really support gay marriage. I don’t have a very strong objection either.

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There is no act of government that can un-hose this mess up now because it should not have been the under government control or manipulation in the first place. The only way to resolve this is a complete government withdraw from marriage and the complete removal of marriage oriented rules and laws from all state, local and federal levels of government. Then the market will determine what a marriage is and what it is not through simple contract law.

At a minimum the government should just stop registering, recognizing and policing marriages and let the people who marry write their own contracts. Here there are only thousands of do-it yourself contracts and other documents scattered on the internet that would allow you do that.

I am sickened that anyone who likes freedom and justice would adovcate coercive bureaucracy in their private contractual arrangements. I understand that religious folk who really worship the state would want government defined marriage, but I can not see that as being anything but un-Christian.

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"I have similar views in that sense. Gays should be allowed to marry for the same reason I should be able to marry multiple people. My issues on morality may not be in favor in it, but forcing someone to be subject to my morality is just wrong. I don’t like alcohol, should I be able to put a gun to the head of drinkers? No. It’s wrong.

One’s conservative or liberal personal morality, nor your life style choice should not be confused with politics."

I think there are two mistakes here. You are confusing your emotions and opinions (about drinking or gay marriage) for morality. Morality is not simply what you believe, but something that is compared to a rational standard. As far as I know, there is no rational standard which says that merely drinking alcohol or gays getting married is immoral. It could be that a contract of marriage is immoral in some respects if it is forced on one or the other party… or that mental impairment from alcohol leads to an evasion of moral responsibility… but neither gay marriage nor drinking alcohol can really be considered immoral.

So of course this ‘morality’ can’t be forced. Because it is here mistaken for an opinion. And is the same as saying I can’t force someone to like rocky road ice cream. Though, although it isn’t an issue of morality, you are basically saying that there is a mysterious (non-rational or conscious) reason why you don’t like these things and in the mean time people should be allowed to do them. Perhaps until you can figure it out yourself or be able to explain it. All the same it should be clear it isn’t morality.

And two: as long as you defend against an attacker, you subject someone to morality. Because you are making a moral rule and forcing them to obey it. Even somewhat benign methods like ostracism of liars or dishonest people… or writing an article intellectually tackling a political problem seems to be forcing morality. In fact, that which one cannot subject people to (or is impossible) cannot really be considered moral or immoral. (ie: expecting rocks to be moral or expecting people to go back in time to correct an error).

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“However nobody can own a concept and forbid anyone from using it appealing to antiquity, religion or tradition”

This is certainly true of the word ‘society’ which today means ‘the state’s domain’ because of some usually historical/religious/some other reason.

But which of course is only correlated with it and not in any other way rationally inseparable.

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This is really a question of authority isn’t it?

Do gays actually have enough power to allow them to use the state to let them get married or don’t they?

It’s looking more and more like they do.

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^Hey blooms back, hi!

It is a question of authority, but more in the sense of “should we allow people to make their own decisions between each other”, but you bring up a good point. Then my question for you is, if power is what is important, then what power does ANY minority group have?

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“Hey blooms back, hi!”

Hello, good to be back :slight_smile:

"It is a question of authority, but more in the sense of “should we allow people to make their own decisions between each other”

I think that’s a question for God to answer.

“Then my question for you is, if power is what is important, then what power does ANY minority group have?”

I would say that political power is a function of numbers. If enough people think that gays should be able to get married then they’ll have the power to make that happen. It seems to me that right or wrong, any individual or minority can wield vast power if they can influence the hearts and minds of the masses.

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Wow. This was just published and I received so much b.s. for it from everyone. Comments from, “Why shouldn’t my parents and I be able to get benefits, too?” and “What a bunch of dumb libertarian stuff! Yeah, let’s not let the government intervene when kids get abused too! So stupid!” I answered the first guy with a really long e-mail because I don’t think he understood the point of the column. He said it would be easier to give gays the marriage benefits instead of striking down all marriage laws, and I asked him why he thought he was better than an unmarried couple who still lives together and raised children. The second guy - I don’t even know what to say. He’s gay, yet he’s comparing gay marriage to child abuse.