Given the California Supreme Court’s ruling this morning overturning a ban on gay marriage, I thought I’d link to my article earlier this year providing a libertarian take on the subject. My main point is the state should stay out of the marriage business completely:

“Why not just let individuals choose their own terms of marriage, based on the dictates of their religious group or their conscience? Advocates for state-sanctioned marriage argue that marriage is a public good that needs to be protected. Well, good marriages are good for the nation, no doubt, but it’s not as if states can make people more moral by imposing certain rules on them. People already live in every sort of moral and immoral way, inside and outside of marriage. That’s the nature of humankind. And, in my experience, the public usually gets the opposite of whatever it is that the government tries to impose. I’d argue that the best way to encourage solid marriages is to let individuals choose the terms of them. Most people will no doubt opt for a rather traditional model.

“I’m a traditionalist on such matters, but it’s not up to me to decide how other people should live. My marriage is not dependent on the state, but on my church (I’m Eastern Orthodox), which would never approve of gay marriage. But some other religious groups do. What they do is not my business, as I am not a member of them. Public “benefits” and legal responsibilities should be handled by contract, not state decree.”

Check out tomorrow’s Register for an editorial on the matter, which is now being penned by Alan Bock.

This entry was posted on Thursday, May 15th, 2008 at 11:01 am and is filed under California, Civil Liberties, Culture. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.