Gay Marriage (Briefly) Legalized In Iowa
Posted: August 31st, 2007 | Author: Sam | Filed under: Blog Posts, Homosexuality, Libertarians, Politics, Scary Stuff, Stupid Stuff |
Oh, how I had enjoyed our brief respite from the gay marriage fight. It must have been at least two weeks, and quite possibly longer, since social conservatives went ballistic about the possibility that those two guys living down the street together would receive legal recognition for their love. But, as a boss at a factory barks, “Breaks over!”
I don’t know why I feel compelled to poke and prod at Libertarians after a decision like this, except that it is worthless to criticize social conservatives (”The Baby Jesus hated gay people and we all know it!”) nor celebrate with pro-gay-marriage activists like myself, I guess. So instead, I turn a suspicious eye toward those who insist that it isn’t that they’re against gay marriage - they’re against government involvement in marriage altogether.
I have to admit that one of the more compelling solutions I’ve ever heard to the gay marriage conundrum involves the government getting out of the marriage business altogether, instead offering civil unions to any two people that want them: gay, straight, whatever. However, this isn’t going to happen in a million, billion years because we’re conditioned to believe that the government ought to have something to do with the institution of marriage. Advocating for humongous change like government abdication on marriage is sort of like advocating for Saturn to stop being so damned big: you can do it, but good luck accomplishing anything.
Libertarians claim to be interested in individual liberty, but it seems to me that they’re often interested in only their own definitions of it. But suppose we aggregated something like liberty. If given a choice between our current situation and a situation wherein gays can get married, isn’t the person who believes in liberty forced to go for the scenario where the government has a hand in marriage, but doesn’t prevent gays from getting married, because the aggregate measure of individual freedom is higher than in the other scenario?
If my concern is giving individuals as much leeway as possible in their daily lives, maybe a long run, ideal solution is getting the government out of the marriage business. But as Keynes argued, “In the long run, we’ll all be dead.” That doesn’t address the very serious short-term problem of gays being unable to legally enshrine their love for one another. Which means that in this particular case, government intervention is actually a good thing, as a decision (like in Iowa) to allow gays to marry increases the overall measure of freedom for all individuals.
Ta-da! A pro-Libertarian argument that still gets me what I want, which is gay marriage for all of my gay friends.
(And so it begins…a good, old-fashioned hate-off!)
(Oh, wait, ballgame.)
So Libertarians are ideologically right, but impractical as usual? I guess I’m okay with that.
What is more interesting is whether the Libertarian belief in a slippery slope is accurate. Eg: I f we let the state have a say about marriage, they’ll want to get more involved in parenting, and in the long run we’ll all be slaves.
For moralistic libertarians, policy decisions are often about which direction the policy moves the power of the state, nothing else matters. For the individuals involved this is bogus.
I know few libertarians who would take issue with a policy saying that as long as government is involved in issuing marriage licenses, it should issue them without prejudice to any consenting adults who want them. In fact, most libertarians would say that as long as government is going to issue marriage licenses, it should issue them without prejudice based on the number of licensees (e.g., legalized polygamy and group marriage). And I agree with you that any person, libertarian or otherwise, who claims to believe in individual liberty but wants to keep marriage for straight people only, whatever their reasoning, has messed up somewhere in their thinking.
Personally, I’m not sure that if/when I fall in love, I would get married under the law as it currently stands. It would feel too much like joining an all-white country club or otherwise taking advantage of a benefit available to me on a discriminatory basis. I would get a civil union, but many states where those are available don’t recognize civil unions between straight couples. I don’t fault people who make a different decision, but I just don’t feel right about taking advantage of a government benefit that isn’t available to some of the people I love the most in the world. I would, however, throw a kickass wedding, minus the pesky license.