Gay Marriage, Liberalism, and Regnn: The Case for Equal Treatment on JSTOR

Contents:

• A LIBERTARIAN'S VIEW OF GAY MARRIAGE
• GAY MARRIAGE AND THE LIBERTARIAN’S DILEMMA
• SECTN 2: KNOWG GAYS AND LBIANS, RELIG CONFLICTS, BELIEFS ABOUT HOMOSEXUALY

A LIBERTARIAN'S VIEW OF GAY MARRIAGE

As a libertarian, I thk all nsentg adults who want to m to a life partner ought to be treated the same air this issue on my Fox Bs show, I ved Brian Brown of the Natnal Organizatn for Marriage () and David Harsanyi, libertarian lumnist at The says gay marriage threatens marriage between a man and a woman. I don’t see a problem wh the first: If they refe marriage to clu gays, that don’t dimish my marriage. “They’re beg told that their parents' views are sentially bigotry, ” said ’s another reason we should have school his third pot, if a state tells Catholic Chari they may not honor their beliefs and lim adoptns to straight upl, that’s a problem of Big Government, not gay marriage.

No prcipled libertarian objects to gay marriage for specifilly moral reasons, havg to do wh “marriage” beg rerved for the permanent bond between a man and a woman, for stance.

In what will surely be the two most closely watched s of the 2012-2013 term, the Supreme Court mt answer a qutn that no one would have dared to ask a generatn ago: Do the rtrictns on gay marriage at the state and feral level vlate the Uned Stat Constutn?

GAY MARRIAGE AND THE LIBERTARIAN’S DILEMMA

Its key provisns were tend as an artful promise that allowed those stat that wished to do so to adopt gay marriage laws.

Sectn 2 of the statute says that a state is not required to give full fah and cred to gay marriag performed other stat if dog so is agast their own public policy.

Unls that veat is accepted, one state n dictate the marriage policy of the whole natn by validatg gay marriag that other stat would then be bound to rpect. Wholly apart om the law, there has culturally been a huge sea change popular sentiment the last several months, as many proment personag, om Hillary Clton to Rob Portman, have e forward supportg gay marriage, which now is poised to ga wispread public acceptance.

SECTN 2: KNOWG GAYS AND LBIANS, RELIG CONFLICTS, BELIEFS ABOUT HOMOSEXUALY

To libertarians, the fact that many people disapprove of gay marriage rri no normative weight. Gay marriage is a se where the legal norms would do well to get le wh social practic—but wh one veat. The libertarian norms are equally offend when the fenrs of gay marriage sist that all private parti, cludg private relig anizatns, be required to treat same-sex upl equally.

By that origalist standard, the nstutnal se for gay marriage is ad on arrival for two related reasons. It is a pipe dream to believe that any Court that took this harsh attu toward polygamy, which was self a tradnal heterosexual practice, would have sanctned gay marriage.

Hardwick, which found that lay wh Geia’s police power to punish nsensual homosexual sodomy between two adults a private home. No nnectn between fay, marriage, or procreatn, on the one hand, and homosexual activy, on the other, has been monstrated, eher by the Court of Appeals or by the rponnt. Not acrdg to Profsor Michael McConnell, who has argued that the Court should cle to hear the gay marriage s on the basis that the mocratic procs should be left to work through this issue on a centralized basis.