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Most libertarians would argue that the federal government has no real business defining what marriage is in the first place, either for tax collection purposes, census or any other reason. It’s up to the various faiths to define and individual states to regulate what institutions of marriage or union they recognize or reject.

And many libertarians also believe that life is the first right: http://l4l.org/ A movement I hope to see grow.

" Libertarians typically favor an aggressive judiciary that is willing to overturn mistaken precedents and strike down unconstitutional state and federal statutes. The Georgetown law professor Randy Barnett, for instance, has argued that the courts should adopt a “presumption of liberty,” meaning that the government should be required “to justify its restriction on liberty, instead of requiring the citizen to establish that the liberty being exercised is somehow ‘fundamental.’ ” " Is not the Bill of Rights, and the Constitution based on the " presumption of liberty" ?

My libertarian leanings tell me what ever historic ties marriage may have had with state monarchies , marriage is a religious ritual and there should be no law what so ever about it , any more than laws about baptism .

Since forcible drowning would already be covered , I would say none are warranted there either.

My branch of the libertarian tree also tells me abortion is on the same side of the fence as violence and state governments should answer to their citizens .

Abortion is an issue unlike almost any other in government . It is perhaps the only issue I can think of that rivals slavery and the battle for civil rights as needing separate and unique considerations .

Like slavery and civil rights , there is no gray area in my humble , yet unerringly correct opinion .

“And many libertarians also believe that life is the first right”

I believe that. How can you claim any rights if you don’t have something so fundamental as a right to your life?

I have no conflict with libertarians who really believe that the states (as long as it is the people and/or their elected legislators, not state courts)should be free to decide for their own purposes what unions they will or will not recognize. This is totally in line with how I think the Constitution should be interpreted.

The problem is that many libertarians support judicial activism and a ‘living Constitution’ when it comes to social issues like marriage. Some guy from the Cato Institute co-wrote an article yesterday in the Washington Post calling for the federal courts to impose gay marriage on the entire nation.

I understand that many libertarians are socially liberal, but if they can’t at least agree and concede that their socially liberal views are not enshrined in the Constitution and should not be imposed by the courts, then I don’t see how a conservative-libertarian alliance can work or last.

And as far as the federal goverment defining marriage is concerned, well remember that the Sup Court is part of the federal government, and if Congress has no right or business defining marriage, then the Sup Court definitely doesn’t.