So if you get your way, marriage is over, it no longer exists, do you really see marriage as meaningless to western Civilization, and America, and the American people?
How much power do you think that you need, to impose that on conservative America?
How much power do you think that you need, to impose that on conservative America?
How do you reach that set of conclusions from my attempt to explain some principles of libertarian thinking to the original poster? You have no idea what "my way" is, or if I even subscribe to the point of view I was explaining. Don't you see that it is possible to know about a point of view without necessarily adopting it?
You comment about "power" and "imposing" shows that you don't understand at all the entire premise of libertarian thinking. The key underlying idea of libertarianism is to never "impose" anything, except some minimal set of laws in order to protect people's freedom, but rather to change people's point of view through education, persuasion, etc.
In an attempt to further explain libertarian principles, isn't it the government that is principally putting the institution or marriage at risk? With the exception of a few very liberal churches, I don't see any movement by churches or the majority of people in this country to redefine marriage, or reduce its meaning in any way. In fact in practically every place where the voters have a say, they leave the institution of marriage just as it has always been. So if the government wasn't forcing same sex marriage on the society as a whole, it wouldn't really be an issue would it?
Put another way, if the definition of marriage was left up to people and churches, it would remain as it always has been, the union of a man and a woman. Sure, some small minority of people would hold differing views, but they would have no real impact on the rest of society, because their individual, personal actions would not be sanctioned by the government, and ultimately forced upon the rest of us through the legal system.
To explain that concept more fully, no doubt same sex couples throughout history have privately pledged fidelity to each other, and lived in a monogamous relationship, and lived their lives in a way analogous to how a married couple would live theirs. And clearly that choice by those individuals had little impact on society's view of marriage. Notice however that it is through the involvement of government in the issue that problems arise, and society is now faced with an attempt to re-define the meaning of a timeless human institution by judges sitting in courtrooms.