Posted on 06/04/2014 10:19:50 AM PDT by Iced Tea Party
Cultural civil war can be avoided by getting government out of marriage
There is no question that the media, political, and cultural push for gay marriage has made impressive gains. As recently as 1989, voters in avant-garde San Francisco repealed a law that had established only domestic partnerships.
But judging by the questions posed by Supreme Court justices this week in oral arguments for two gay-marriage cases, most observers do not expect sweeping rulings that would settle the issue and avoid protracted political combat. A total of 41 states currently do not allow gay marriage, and most of those laws are likely to remain in place for some time. Even should the Court declare unconstitutional the Defense of Marriage Act, which defines marriage as between a man and a woman for federal purposes, we can expect many pitched battles in Congress. The word “spouse” appears in federal laws and regulations a total of 1,138 times, and many of those references would have to be untangled by Congress absent DOMA.
No wonder Wisconsin’s GOP governor Scott Walker sees public desire for a Third Way. On Meet the Press this month he remarked on how many young people have asked him why the debate is over whether the definition of marriage should be expanded. They think the question is rather “why the government is sanctioning it in the first place.” The alterative would be to “not have the government sanction marriage period, and leave that up to the churches and the synagogues and others to define that.”
Governor Walker made clear these thoughts weren’t “anything I’m advocating for,” but he gave voice to many people who don’t think the gay-marriage debate should tear the country apart in a battle over who controls the culture and wins the government’s seal of approval. Gay-marriage proponents argue that their struggle is the civil-rights issue of our time, although many gays privately question that idea. Opponents who bear no animus toward gays lament that ancient traditions are being swept aside before the evidence is in on how gay marriage would affect the culture.
Both sides operate from the shaky premise that government must be the arbiter of this dispute. Columnist Andrew Sullivan, a crusader for gay marriage, has written that “marriage is a formal, public institution that only the government can grant.” But that’s not so. Marriage predates government. Marriage scholar Lawrence Stone has noted that in the Middle Ages it was “treated as a private contract between two families . . . For those without property, it was a private contract between two individuals enforced by the community sense of what was right.” Indeed, marriage wasn’t even regulated by law in Britain until the Marriage Acts of 1754 and 1835. Common-law unions in early America were long recognized before each state imposed a one-size-fits-all set of marriage laws.
The Founding Fathers avoided creating government-approved religions so as to avoid Europe’s history of church-based wars. Depoliticizing religion has mostly proven to be a good template for defusing conflict by keeping it largely in the private sphere.
Turning marriage into fundamentally a private right wouldn’t be an easy task. Courts and government would still be called on to recognize and enforce contracts that a couple would enter into, and clearly some contracts — such as in a slave-master relationship — would be invalid. But instead of fighting over which marriages gain its approval, government would end the business of making distinctions for the purpose of social engineering based on whether someone was married. A flatter tax code would go a long way toward ending marriage penalties or bonuses. We would need a more sensible system of legal immigration so that fewer people would enter the country solely on the basis of spousal rights.
The current debate pits those demanding “marriage equality” against supporters of “traditional marriage.” But many Americans believe it would be better if we left matters to individuals and religious bodies. The cherished principle of separating church and state should be extended as much as possible into separating marriage and state. Ron Paul won many cheers during his 2012 presidential campaign when he declared, “I’d like to see all governments out of the marriage question. I don’t think it’s a state decision. I think it’s a religious function. I am supportive of all voluntary associations and people can call it whatever they want.”
Supporters of traditional marriage know the political winds are blowing against them. A new Fox News poll finds 49 percent of voters favoring gay marriage, up from just 32 percent a decade ago. And among self-described conservatives under 35, Fox found support for gay marriage is now at 44 percent. Even if the Supreme Court leaves the battle for gay marriage to trench warfare in the states, the balance of power is shifting. Rush Limbaugh, a powerful social conservative, told his listeners this week: “I don’t care what this court does with this particular ruling. . . . I think the inertia is clearly moving in the direction that there is going to be gay marriage at some point nationwide.”
But a majority of Americans still believe the issue of gay marriage should be settled by the states and not with Roe v. Wade–style central planning. It might still be possible to assemble a coalition of people who want to avoid a civil war over the culture and who favor getting government out of the business of marriage.
— John Fund is national-affairs columnist for NRO.
Abraham Lincoln had a marriage license, George Washington paid for his favorite nephew's license, and Thomas Jefferson bought his own license.
Well, thanks for clearing the air. Saved me plenty of time.
One main difference between regular leftists and libertarians is that regular leftists are upfront with their agenda, whereas libertarians are quite coy, and use many duplicitous methods to pretend that they really love the Constitution. The other main difference is they want to have guns and low taxes. Other than that, it's hardcore leftism veering into anarchy. Another utopian idiocy that if ever practiced, would create utter social breakdown and chaos in short order. Which would of course lead to the jack booted thuggism they hate.
It's comic book utopianism because anyone not doped out can see it for what it is. I'm sure not all libertarians use drugs, but enough do that it's sort of a herd immunity thing.
It made no sense to me.
In the military, federal employment and immigration for example.
That was a simply spectacular post. Brava!
What is most bizarre is that they don't even try to hide it. It's an us vs. them mindset.
This coming from someone with a tag line of "NO LIBS. This Means Liberals and (L)libertarians! Same Thing." Yeah, nothing "us vs them" in that. Here is a word for you to look up: Projection.
Churches and social groups?
Why do you guys always leave out the Mosques and gay churches, and the Mormon Temples, and cults, and atheists?
You have always been the best troll shootingest zot-slinger in all of FRee Republic.
Our zots went down by double digits while you were away. Nice to have you back.
Well said, lj.
One of my sisters has decided recently that she is a libertarian, and that she dislikes conservatives. Oy. She also switched from being Catholic to some religion that she refuses to define. Sometimes being from a large family isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.
You’re quite welcome.
You know a lot of good points, that is an impressive list.
It would be a church with tax exempt status and the ability to marry gays.
It’s a common sense agenda. ANYTHING the government regulates is going to be torn down and bastardized to appease disparate voting blocks.
Unless you fear the government being out of the marriage license business and enacting civil unions is going to turn YOU queer, why would you give a crap about it? It’s going to come anyway barring a societal collapse that weeds out the droves of hedonistic parasites infesting the country.
Conservatives need to accept the fact that unless there is a huge sea change in American society (probably with a lot of crying and screaming) there are a LOT of issues that are just not going to get resolved in our favor. This is one of them that at least the God fearing can still structure themselves around correctly while the associated bureaucratic institution craters upon itself catering to spiritual meaninglessness.
But what would the lawyers do? Starve?
You know what? I will never apologize for my tagline. It drives libs nutz? Good.
But for you to take a hostile attitude against conservatives is even more nutz.
Who gives a s***?!?! The only one they really have to answer to is God. He’ll know. Did he designate people down here to keep track of how people commit to unions amongst themselves?
Licentiousness has its own corrective medicine in misery, disease and dysfunction. Let it work...
You may have noticed that outside of the religion pages, the most feverishly religious posters we see, are the libertarians on the gay marriage threads.
At some point they suddenly switched to libertarian arguments in the name of some greater spirituality and Christian commitment to God, a sort of 'greater truth' a more 'pure commitment' to the "long run" if you read libertarian articles you can see where these sudden switches in arguments and strategies come from.
I don’t support marriage benefits that Obama bestowed on gay marriage in the military and at the federal level.
You want conservatives to stop politically opposing gay marriage?
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