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Limited Government, Gay Marriage & The Future
Last week I had a post about how the fight over marriage equality is over. Gay marriage has won. In the ensuing discussion, the entire point seemed to have been lost. We have passed the tipping point on this issue. Just a reminder:
Look at that trend line.
It’s not just this Gallup poll. Public sentiment, as well as legal and social momentum, is clear and in one direction. My entire point is that there’s no fight to be had here politically.
I think I’ve established here on Ricochet that elections aren’t my main focus. It doesn’t matter as much to me.
But it matters to many of you, my friends here at Ricochet. What I’m trying to tell you is that if you keep pushing on this, you’ll keep losing. Electoral politics depends, rightly or wrongly, on appealing to the public. You can’t do that by pushing on issues that the public is on the complete opposite side of. If you do, you’re going to keep losing.
The problem is that we’ve reached a point where the federal government has become dangerously out of control, and since I can’t just go off into the woods and live in a cabin with my cats, I have been drawn, with enormous disgust, into having to care about this stuff.
Let me be uncharacteristically communitarian for a moment. We — those who care about human freedom, those of us who care about the future of this nation — have to stop losing elections. At a certain point, if we continue on the course we are presently on, there will be a massive, sudden, probably violent change in our government or our way of life. Frankly, I’m tired of losing elections to dangerous statists because for some reason the better candidate gets tripped up talking about gay marriage.
Enough of this.
I thus present a solution, one I have presented before here on Ricochet.
Most of you reading this have very strong feelings about gay marriage. I’m not going to argue about your feelings, your belief structure, or what you think. We’ve been through all of that over and over. I’m not going to convince you and you’re not going to convince me.
What I is suggest a change in emphasis for conservatives who care about traditional marriage. This solution I first encountered out of the mouth of a man who I know to be, frankly, a bigot. (Not in the diluted sense of the word so frequently used today. An actual bigot.)
The solution: Separation of marriage and state.
Marriage is a lot of things, among them a legal contract. As the law stands now, one needs a license to get married. We license marriages now, but we did not always. Historically, there weren’t licenses. There were records. The clerk merely recorded what others had used their freedom to do.
The point of recording marriage is to resolve legal disputes. Marriage need not be licensed. People could simply register with a government clerk. Many of you will voice practical objections. “What about X?” There’s always a solution for X.
Separating marriage and government means that how I feel about gay people and gay marriage and how you feel about gay people and gay marriage don’t matter politically. One side isn’t forcing its definitions or values on the other. We don’t need to fight. We can both be on the same side without either of us compromising our belief systems.
It’s also not an electoral loser.
Published in General
You are 100% right. Marriage is for churches; contracts are for government.
I agree 100%. But most on the right who favor “traditional marriage” do so because they want to determine how people live. It’s a feature, not a bug.
I doubt that they’ll be swayed by this proposal…
Okay, Fred. I’m waiting for your “Limited Marriage, Gay Government & The Future” post now.
Does your proposal include dissolving or extremely scaling back family courts? Removing government from marriage should also include removing them from the dissolution of said marriages. Property? Children? You figure it out. Violations of custody? No alimony?
If the state has no interest in who you marry, why should they be interested in how you end it?
Do you honestly think you can sell that?
While I’m sure that that’s true in some cases, I’d prefer to give people the benefit of the doubt that their professed motives are genuine.
Various responses to this come to my mind but I think I will just roll my eyes and go on with my day. I would “like” Arahant’s comment but my “likes” have been broken for weeks.
Of course not, because it won’t even come up in an election. Perhaps you can popularize the proposal in coming decades, but it’s a thought that has never crossed the mind of most voters and politicians. At this point, it’s just a dream.
A proposal which has at least been popularly debated in recent years is national tax reform. Eliminate the national income tax, and you will undercut most laws directly regarding marriage. Unfortunately, that too is a political long shot, if not a fantasy.
I’m with you on the need for fundamental reforms and limited government. However, note that Obama was not just elected but actually reelected. Even now, not enough voters realize the extent of our problems or the obscenities which have been normalized. Sad to say, I think it will all have to crash and burn before enough people are willing to imagine radical reversions to less intrusive politics.
I’ve seen a hundred times where people have said “get government out of marriage” but have never seen anyone actually explain what they mean by that. Thank for filling it out a little, Fred.
So when did the government licensing begin? I remember reading a book about the Sioux Indians from the latter half of the 1800’s. The territorial government told the Sioux men that they could no longer keep multiple wives, they would each have to choose just one. Are we talking about American colonial days or even further back?
Gee, that’s what I thought about people on the left. You know, the ones running the schools where kindergarteners have to learn about Two Daddies and the older kids have to learn Gay History.
Fred, how is ‘registering with a clerk’ so different from ‘getting a license’? How that is ‘getting government out of marriage’?
It could be a way to defuse being on the wrong side of a position. “I’m not going to stand in the way of gay marriage, but we should really be separating marriage and the state and allow people to make their own marriage contracts.” Won’t change the debate overnight, but the current one is going nowhere fast.
Fred – When the Democrats start passing pro-life legislation because the polls show a majority believe in reasonable restrictions I’ll buy your argument that it’s “over.”
A majority status should not be confused with being correct. Just a few short years ago the polls were reversed. Did gays say, “It’s over.”? Hardly. If you’re tired of debating it, tired of defending it, then retreat. But don’t be surprised if those opposed don’t join you.
Have you heard of the War on Drugs? That’s primarily a project of the Right, and is entirely concerned with telling people what they can and cannot do…
OK, I can’t resist. I’ll repeat the point that rico made, only less subtly:
Any political candidate who advocates eliminating all laws that recognize marriage will lose. Lose huge. Be considered a lunatic. It is not possible that anyone with any grasp of reality thinks that position is not an electoral loser.
So was gay marriage not long ago.
What is the practical the difference between gender-neutral marriage and Fred’s proposal?
Can’t seem to quote in 2.0, but @Mike H, Fred is telling us it is not an electoral loser now. Which is ludicrous. His point is that we should give on advocating for our unpopular opinion held by 43% and instead take up a cause supported by maybe 5%, in order to better our political fortunes.
I’m not surthat question makes sense in this context.
Sadder to say, that is not the usual direction that human nature takes. Usually nations do not survive the crash and burn well enough to recover, or if they do, it is like Russia going from Tsar to Soviet Communism to a brief Yeltsin and back to the Tsar with Putin The Roman Republic, the Magna Carta, and the American Revolution are unusual events in history, not the norm.
Further back. The problem was fraud, bigamy and other games people play. It started in England around the Thirteenth Century with a requirement to read the banns over three weeks’ time before the marriage. Licenses came in around C14 as a short cut. People paid a fee, swore an oath there was no impediment, and then could skip the three weeks of the banns or the requirement of being in their home parishes. The British Colonies inherited that tradition. Then it became a governmental requirement with Taxachusetts leading the way in 1639, collecting all those lovely fees.
Too much to say Right now, so I’ll just point out one that no one has touched upon:
If differing sides have different definitions of a word, then either one side is wrong or We all get to have Our Own definitions for all words. If the former, then We all know what marriage is. If the latter, then never sign a contract agreement with Fred Cole.
I should also say that since the church was established in England and most of the colonies, even before they went to a separate governmental agency for licensing and it went through the church, the church might have been considered an arm of the government, especially after the Reformation.
Youre right. If we don’t have Holy Mother Government to define words for us and sprinkle the magical fairy dust of legitimacy on our dictionaries, if we as free citizens actually have to define social concepts and words for ourselves, it’ll be the end of Western Civilization. What I’m proposing is 476AD all over again.
I am 100% behind you Fred, looking forward to me and the wife marrying our parrots. Glad to hear you are going to support us.
Is the law the only thing keeping yfor from marrying your parrot?
i confess I’m curious as to how you intend to get the parrots’ informed consent.
Also, what is the age of majority for
parrots? Does it vary by species?
In a court of law:
Mr. Carter: Yer Honor, Mr. Cole signed the title, the bill of sale, and this contract stating that the vehicle is in “perfect running condition.” Not only did it not start, but it burst into flames.
Mr. Cole: I object! Yer Honor, the plaintiff is “forcing” His definition of <finger quote> perfect running condition <finger quote> on Me and I don’t appreciate it.
Jimmy Carter, sack your lawyer.
Quote is now called “Comment,” do you have that option?
Fred, I believe you have a mistaken understanding of marriage. Marriage is not the agreement between the two individuals but their community’s (in the case of civil marriage, their civil community represented by the state) affirmation and recognition of the union the commitment creates. If you take the state out of the equation, you are left with nothing. There is no substitute for representing the civil community.