Libertarians and Popeye: "Give me the left's social agenda today, and I will gladly give you conservative economics on Tuesday".
""Rand Paul’s Same-Sex Marriage Plan: Continue The Debate ‘For Another Couple Of Decades’""
In an interview with the Christian Broadcasting Network
PAUL: Where marriage is adjudicated, whether it’s at the federal level or at the state level, we’ve always had marriage certificates and we’ve had them at the state level. If we keep it that way, maybe we can still have the discussion go on without make the decision go all the way one way or all the way the other way. I think right now if we say we’re only going to have a federally mandated one-man, one-woman marriage, we’re going to lose that battle because the country is going the other way right now. If we were to say each state can decide, I think a good 25, 30 states still do believe in traditional marriage, and maybe we allow that debate to go on for another couple of decades and see if we can still win back the hearts and minds of people.
It’s off the topic of this thread, but I support federalism. Accordingly, I think homosexual marriage should be left to the states. I also think the federal government has an obligation to recognize marriages that are legally performed in a given state. In other words, it’s not the federal government’s right to tell the states what constitutes a marriage. That doesn’t mean I wouldn’t vote for marriage (there’s only one kind of marriage and it ain’t two sodomites!) in my state.
I believe federalism is one of only two ways to ultimately hold this nation together, because the states have widely diverse views. I don’t think I have a right as an Oklahoman to tell Californians how to live. I only wish they treated me with the same respect, and that’s the real problem. We have some people, primarily Democrats, who aren’t content to let people in the states decide these issues for themselves. Democrats think the federal government—or worse, a global government!—should be in charge of everything.
Federalism, of course, means I have to tolerate some states doing things I don’t like and vice versa. It’s called being good neighbors as states and not using the federal government to browbeat each other. That’s the second way to hold the nation together, and it requires an all powerful federal beast that crushes liberty.