Should a Libertarian Support Homosexual Marriage?
Libertarians, in my experience, have a hard time getting a handle on marriage. If you’re the sort of person who likes to maximize individual freedoms and minimize imposed social forms, then marriage is a strange beast. By getting married, we voluntarily sacrifice many personal freedoms, and we effectively ask society to pressure us into keeping our marital commitments. It’s not quite the infamous slave contract, but it’s close. It is counterintuitive for a libertarian to warm to this sort of arrangement. And yet, the fact remains that where marriage fails, the role of government inevitably grows, and individual liberties accordingly diminish. Apparently, the ball and chain helps make us free.
I’m not suggesting that it’s impossible for a libertarian to work through these oddities, but it’s complicated. Marriage is a classic case of an area of life in which imposed discipline yields great rewards. The methods of imposition are complex, but generally involve the subtle interaction of social, religious and, yes, legal forms that work together to encourage people to maintain this most critical of human bonds. Since every human society in known history has had some such arrangement, there is no shortage of data to sort through, but we can make little sense of it without dealing in the sort of substantial normative claims that make libertarians uncomfortable. They prefer their public policy normativity-lite.
All this is to say that I perfectly understand why so many libertarians come down in favor of homosexual marriage. In fact, the marriage debate provides a great opportunity for squeamish libertarians to distance themselves from the cranky and emotional religious right. Abortion violates the harm principle in a pretty obvious way: it leaves a human being dead. Expanding marriage, by contrast, doesn’t appear to harm anyone. By supporting homosexual marriage, libertarians can prove that they legitimately do not wish to impose a particular Judeo-Christian-inspired lifestyle on everyone, and that they will stand by their live-and-let-live principles even when this puts them at odds with some of their conservative allies. This is a very attractive opportunity for many libertarians. They love the feeling of standing above the fray of others’ messy emotions and biases.
Thus, a common libertarian take on marriage is something like the following: homosexual couples should be able to marry legally, but other people should not be required to recognize or celebrate that marriage on a social or professional level. If you don’t support homosexual marriage, decline the wedding invitation, don’t send presents, and don’t invite the couple to dinner. Everyone should just mind his own business.
It sounds reasonable. Here’s the thing, though. Marriage has nothing to do with minding one’s own business. If a couple merely wants to mind their own business, what need for the chaplain, the certificate, or the rented reception hall? People aren’t marching in pride parades to win the right to mind their own business. What they want is widespread social acknowledgement of the legitimacy of their relationships. They want homosexual couplings to be afforded the same social standing as heterosexual ones.
Given this goal, lobbying for marriage makes sense. Marriage is the gold standard of relationship legitimacy. The fact is that many Americans don’t see marriage as the sort of thing homosexuals can do, and homosexuals are not wrong to conclude that their coupling is widely regarded as irregular and less than respectable. I’ve heard homosexual friends, in their dreamier moments, fantasize about the peaceful, love-tolerant society that they one day hope to achieve. In this society, James and Bob will be able to hold hands in a public park without causing offense, and no one will blink at the photo of Janet and Linda in their bridal gowns.
It’s like those snakes with the fangs that only pop out when they’re preparing to strike. Everything’s love and acceptance until you realize that what they really want is the obliteration of the Judeo-Christian view of marriage.
Sorry to be dramatic, but that's simply where we are. There really is nothing let-live about this vision. Millennia of human societies have understood marriage to be a particular sort of thing. That view has to die before the love-tolerant society can emerge. Some people want it to die, which, given a certain agenda, makes sense. What doesn’t make sense is supporting homosexual marriage as a means to a more tolerant, more free society. Liberals want to legalize homosexual marriage because they want a stronger position from which to pressure conservatives to abandon their traditional view of marriage in favor of something that makes them (liberals generally, not just homosexuals) more comfortable. If there is any other reason for favoring homosexual marriage over and above a civil union-type arrangement, I cannot see it.
I do appreciate, of course, that supporters of homosexual marriage favor different methods for bringing about the desired end. Some are happy to employ aggressive tactics, suing and firing those who do not speedily fall into line with the new customs and mores of the love-tolerant society. Others prefer a softer approach, such as introducing new curricula into public schools. And then, there are some (libertarians often among them) who hope to see a kind of velvet revolution in sexual morals, as the more-tolerant young grow up and replace their stodgier elders. In this last view, co-opting the word “marriage” and some of the more formal trappings may be enough to keep things moving in the right direction.
Personally, I doubt that the velvet revolution will happen. It’s like the frog in the pot of hot water; if you turn up the heat very gradually, it will let itself be boiled to death, but if you heat things up too quickly, it will jump out. For a religious country like the United States, liberals moved too quickly. People are actually thinking about marriage now, and that’s bad news for the homosexual marriage agenda. As with the abortion issue, the marriage arguments are going to become more sophisticated and more familiar, the issue will become entrenched in American society, and our children’s moral sensibilities will be shaped by it to a significant degree, for better or worse. (Of course, I could be wrong about all this, though I hope not. My husband and I have a long-standing bet going concerning homosexual marriage, and if it isn’t legal in all 50 states by the year 2030, I’ll be getting a very nice bottle of cognac.)
My central point, though, is this. A person who truly cares about individual liberties should not support homosexual marriage. A person who relishes pluralism, and takes pride in a society that enables people of widely divergent beliefs to flourish, should not support homosexual marriage. A person who wants us all to “mind our own business” should not support homosexual marriage. Insofar as homosexual persons truly want to live undisturbed, peaceful lives (and some, I believe, really do) they should be content with a substantially similar legal arrangement such as a civil union. Mind your own business by leaving marriage alone.
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Comments:
Aug '10
Re: Should a Libertarian Support Homosexual Marriage?
As for the title question:
People do not have to support SSM to be libertarian, so in that sense, there's no reason a libertarian should support SSM.
On the other hand, there are various reasons why so many libertarians do, in fact, support SSM.
Some argue that contractual family formation should be exanded and privatized. These people may have reasoned themselves (soundly or not) into supporting SSM from other libertarian precepts.
Others self-identify as libertarians because they disagree with most of Progressivism but aren't used to social conservatism. These people may have reasoned themselves into identifying as libertarian because they supported SSM while opposing other non-conservative ideas.
Aug '10
Re: Should a Libertarian Support Homosexual Marriage?
Noesis Noeseos
The examples are too many too list. Laws (or court decisions) forbiding believing Christians from refusing for reasons of conscience from renting their own property to people who will engage in sodomy is but one. This interferes with the right of a Christian (because he is a citizen, not because he is a Christian)--on his or her own personal property--effectively to express his or her opinion that sodomy is contrary to God's law. He or she is thus hamperedvis-a-visthe right of assembly whereby by citizens spontaneously express their opposition to what they opine is unethical behavior.
Here the mandate of an tyrannical state not only supplants the operations of social disapprobation; it quashes them.
Yep.
May '11
Re: Should a Libertarian Support Homosexual Marriage?
Basil Fawlty
It just seems odd to me to deal with what is essentially an unfair institution such as contemporary marriage by expanding the pool of those who can partake of its unfairness. It's rather like opposing the draft yet insisting that women should be subject to it. Fair perhaps, but hardly libertarian.
A better example would be opposing Medicare, but insisting that all citizens have access to sign up for it. The draft is not an entitlement program, marriage and Medicare are.
As a result, I see the libertarian argument as a "net" liberty.
However, I take your point.
Mar '11
Re: Should a Libertarian Support Homosexual Marriage?
Mr. Bildo
Basil Fawlty
It just seems odd to me to deal with what is essentially an unfair institution such as contemporary marriage by expanding the pool of those who can partake of its unfairness. It's rather like opposing the draft yet insisting that women should be subject to it. Fair perhaps, but hardly libertarian.
A better example would be opposing Medicare, but insisting that all citizens have access to sign up for it. The draft is not an entitlement program, marriage and Medicare are.
As a result, I see the libertarian argument as a "net" liberty.
However, I take your point. · 5 minutes ago
Marriage as an entitlement program is apt.
Jul '11
Re: Should a Libertarian Support Homosexual Marriage?
It's a stupid question. Government should get out of the marriage business. Churches, each one of them, can choose to marry who they want.
Libertarians should get out of being in the business of telling others who to marry (if there are any who do). And if someone does tell you who to marry, you should ignore them completely.
Jul '11
Re: Should a Libertarian Support Homosexual Marriage?
You don't need marriage for parental rights. Paternity tests work just as well.
Jul '11
Re: Should a Libertarian Support Homosexual Marriage?
Some people need multiple rites of passages. As many as 10-15.
Some people need the same rite of passage with the same person a couple of times....
I knew these two couple who swapped their rites of passages...
Divorces are annulments of those rites of passages...(I never knew rites of passages could be undone)
Edited on June 15, 2012 at 11:39pmJan '12
Re: Should a Libertarian Support Homosexual Marriage?
Midget Faded Rattlesnake: As for the title question:
People do not have to support SSM to be libertarian, so in that sense, there's no reason a libertarian should support SSM.
On the other hand, there are various reasons why so many libertarians do, in fact, support SSM.
Some argue that contractual family formation should be exanded and privatized. These people may have reasoned themselves (soundly or not) into supporting SSM from other libertarian precepts.
Others self-identify as libertarians because they disagree with most of Progressivism.... These people may have reasoned themselves into identifying as libertarian because they supported SSM while opposing other non-conservative ideas. · 45 minutes ago
Yes, serpentina, there is a libertarian argument that the states' laws regarding marriage should not be constructed so as to exclude homosexual affiliations; but these (from the same libertarian view) would only elaborate the state bare-contractarian view in the first place. But there is no Constitutional argument stating that the states must be mandated to validate such merely contractarian arrangements.
The Constitution is the supreme law of the land. Extreme libertarians will have to learn to subordinate their appraisals of how many uncoerced angels can dance on a pin.
Feb '11
Re: Should a Libertarian Support Homosexual Marriage?
Mr. Bildo
Basil Fawlty
It just seems odd to me to deal with what is essentially an unfair institution such as contemporary marriage by expanding the pool of those who can partake of its unfairness. It's rather like opposing the draft yet insisting that women should be subject to it. Fair perhaps, but hardly libertarian.
A better example would be opposing Medicare, but insisting that all citizens have access to sign up for it. The draft is not an entitlement program, marriage and Medicare are.
As a result, I see the libertarian argument as a "net" liberty.
However, I take your point. · 1 hour ago
I'm not so sure I agree that Medicare is an apt comparison or that marriage is primarily an entitlement. Even if it is, though, it's not true that all citizens have access to sign up for Medicare; citizens under a certain age cannot participate because, well, that's the whole point of Medicare. Likewise with marriage, only heterosexual arrangements qualify because managing the results of heterosexual arrangements is the whole point of marriage (from society's standpoint).
May '10
Re: Should a Libertarian Support Homosexual Marriage?
Boy, upon first scan I thought Rachel had "James and Rob" holding hands, then I saw it was "Bob".
Mar '11
Re: Should a Libertarian Support Homosexual Marriage?
Ed G.
Mr. Bildo
I'm not so sure I agree that Medicare is an apt comparison or that marriage is primarily an entitlement. Even if it is, though, it's not true that all citizens have access to sign up for Medicare; citizens under a certain age cannot participate because, well, that's the whole point of Medicare. Likewise with marriage, only heterosexual arrangements qualify because managing the results of heterosexual arrangements is the whole point of marriage (from society's standpoint). · 29 minutes ago
In either case, marriage is an entitlement program. The difference is that heterosexual marriage has a rational basis for its existence as an entitlement program.
Aug '10
Re: Should a Libertarian Support Homosexual Marriage?
Noesis Noeseos
Yes,serpentina, there is a libertarian argument that the states' laws regarding marriage should not be constructed so as to exclude homosexual affiliations; but these (from the same libertarian view) would only elaborate the state bare-contractarian view in the first place. But there is no Constitutional argument stating that the states must be mandated to validate such merely contractarian arrangements.
The Constitution is the supreme law of the land.
Yes.
On the other hand, the Constitution presupposes that the several states inherit the parliamentary and police powers of Anglosphere common law, more or less. (Forgive me if my understanding isn't precise -- I'm not a lawyer.)
I'm unsure of the exact obligations a state has under common law to recognize contracts -- if by "validate" you meant only "recognize as a legitimate contract".
If by "validate", you meant something other than "recognize as a contract", then of course advocating that states validate SSM is not contractarian.
In any case, a successful rule of law regarding contracts results from the law formalizing and systematizing the arrangements that people tend recognize among themselves as binding to begin with.
Jan '12
Re: Should a Libertarian Support Homosexual Marriage?
Midget Faded Rattlesnake
Yes.
On the other hand, the Constitution presupposes that the several states inherit the parliamentary and police powers of Anglosphere common law, more or less. (Forgive me if my understanding isn't precise -- I'm not a lawyer.)
I'm unsure of the exact obligations a state has under common law to recognize contracts -- if by "validate" you meant only "recognize as a legitimate contract".
If by "validate", you meant something other than "recognize as a contract", then of course advocating that states validate SSM is not contractarian.
In any case, a successful rule of law regarding contracts results from the law formalizing and systematizing the arrangements that people tend recognize among themselves as binding to begin with. · 30 minutes ago
Oy, you caught me in a moment of imprecision. The original text, before the Bill of Rights, read that no state may pass a law the abrogates (I forget the exact word) the obligations of contracts.
Economic matters were at stake. Legislatures in, say, Virginia, could not (continue to?) pass laws repudiating debts their citizens owed to citizens of, say, New York--or perhaps even debts owed to subjects of the British crown.
(to be continued)
Edited on June 16, 2012 at 2:39amFeb '11
Re: Should a Libertarian Support Homosexual Marriage?
Basil Fawlty
Ed G.
.....
I'm not so sure I agree that Medicare is an apt comparison or that marriage is primarily an entitlement. Even if it is, though, it's not true that all citizens have access to sign up for Medicare; citizens under a certain age cannot participate because, well, that's the whole point of Medicare. .....
In either case, marriage is an entitlement program. The difference is that heterosexual marriage has a rational basis for its existence as an entitlement program.
That wasn't the main point of my comment, but I'll play along. If you say that tax breaks for married couples are an entitlement program then I might agree with you, but not so for marriage itself. Society doesn't recognize and formalize marriage in order to hand out benefits (tax breaks) to individuals; rather the tax breaks (the entitlement program) are created to induce people into marriage which benefits society. So if marriage is in any sense an entitlement program then it's society that is the beneficiary, not the married couple.
Jan '12
Re: Should a Libertarian Support Homosexual Marriage?
(continued)
Forgive me, I am vague here, and I am not taking time to research the precise history.
None of legislatures among the Thirteen would have enacted laws with respect to marriage that would have seemed so bizarre to the legislators in another. (I am assuming that all, even Pennsylvania, had laws against miscegenation.) I suspect (alas, without researching) that all had laws severely punishing sodomy.
Thus I do not think that the issue of the laws of marriage (except perhaps regarding the age of consent) was a strong issue in those days, just as it never occurred to anybody to consider whether an, ahem, midget faded rattlesnake merited special protection lest her entire species become extinct and the balance of nature become thus irrevocably disturbed (this despite the laws with respect to hunting seasons).
Sorry, not one of my more disciplined posts, but it *is* Friday, and Happy Hour has arrived.
Edited on June 16, 2012 at 4:21amJan '12
Re: Should a Libertarian Support Homosexual Marriage?
In very ancient times, brothers. Later on, shotguns. Both worked wonders, and the clans abided many, many millenia before the founding of rational states governed by public laws. But those days of vigor and lore, Hegel would write, sind aufgehoben.
Edited on June 16, 2012 at 3:02amAug '10
Re: Should a Libertarian Support Homosexual Marriage?
Marriage is a religious institution. It's belonged to various religions since before history started. One aspect of this institution is that it involves one man and one woman. the term belongs to religion.
Over the years, the state has become involved with Marriage. In particular by offering various economic incentives.
Thus, two problems arise.
First, how does a homosexual couple get to take advantage of the economic benefits? Easy, define a new, state-sponsored institution. Everyone who wants the economic benefits must sign on. (A more Libertarian solution would be no benefits, of course)
Second, how does society handle individuals who want to appropriate the term Marriage for their own purposes? Presumably there are legal sanctions for theft of intellectual property, or some such.
Jan '12
Re: Should a Libertarian Support Homosexual Marriage?
O
Not historically accurate. Although all sanctified ceremonies involve the only pairings that can logically wed, man and woman, some elder cultures--the Hebrew at one time--ratified polygamy. This followed from reflection upon the dynamics of protection and nurturing that existed in nomadic times. (Not from the bare fact of external conditions, as materialists would argue.) The telos was always reproduction, both the begetting and the nurturing and education of offspring, the first moment of which can occur only upon the union of man and woman. What people, especially women, felt about the abiding presence of these factors was augmented in the common feelings of piety, all concentrated in the memory of departed parents and in the subjective experience of their abiding presence from beyond the grave (the penates Romans kept on their household shrines). These became formalized in the budding tribal communities and would later be institutionalized upon the rising of law and the state.
Religious cult-actions expressed the dynamics of this natural piety.
Jan '12
Re: Should a Libertarian Support Homosexual Marriage?
Geoffrey Leach:
First, how does a homosexual couple get to take advantage of the economic benefits? Easy, define a new, state-sponsored institution. Everyone who wants the economic benefits must sign on. (A more Libertarian solution would be no benefits, of course)
Second, how does society handle individuals who want to appropriate the term Marriagefor their own purposes? Presumably there are legal sanctions for theft of intellectual property, or some such. · 57 minutes ago
No modern-day American conservative, theistic, Burkean, or otherwise, will claim that homosexuals may be barred from entering into voluntary contracts. The universal concept of personhood extends that far.
What homosexuals who seek to have their accommodations be defined legally as marriages is not economic liberty but the avoidance of stigmatization. This they simply may not demand, for their actions do not merit the forcing of such recognition. A charitable people may tolerate their aberrations; they can never to forced, except by tyrants, to celebrate them as normative.
Edited on June 16, 2012 at 7:37amMay '10
Re: Should a Libertarian Support Homosexual Marriage?
CandE
Fred Cole:
If you consider marriage to be a contract...
That's just it; it's not a contract.
Marriage is as much of a non-contract as football is a non-sport.