Tweet This!

Tuesday, April 2, 2013

Libertarians want government out of everyone's marriage!

FYI - From Examiner.com/Garry Reed.

-ADY "A Regular Guy On The Issues"
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Libertarians want government out of everyone's marriage
April 2, 2013
By: Garry Reed

Traditional marriage couples? Same-sex married couples? Group marriage? Who knows? Who cares?

It's nobody's business but theirs. No matter what the Supremes finally decide about gay marriage they're not going to satisfy libertarians. An article at Breitbart by a writer code-named Iowahawk offered the libertarian argument on gay marriage without ever speaking the "libertarian" word: "The solution? Maybe it's time for government to get out of the whole marriage business altogether." Adult people, by their very nature, are free agents. People are individuals. People are sovereign beings. They may participate with others in social units of various kinds and sizes but they never stop being individuals and they certainly are not wards of some coercively dictatorial state. Individuals may marry or not, may marry when they wish and whom they wish and define for themselves what they want their marriages to be. . What do libertarians think about gay marriage?.

Iowahawk's article anticipates that the response from the cultural and political left might be to force churches to marry gay people. But if libertarians ever have enough clout to de-governmentize nuptials they should also have enough clout to "remind" the progressive left that they're supposed to be the "tolerant" ones; those who champion gay marriage shouldn't force others to marry them. Today's society should offer nearly limitless options: Download a standardized marriage contract from an internet site, modify it any way they agree to, get witnesses or not, file it or not, get married in a church, synagogue, Mosque, wedding chapel, beach, bowling alley, Uncle Fuddnutt's Bingo Parlor, whatever. Traditional marriage? Same sex marriage? Trial marriage? The Robert A. Heinlein Science Fiction novel The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, much beloved by older libertarians, plays with several alternative marriages and familial arrangements including group marriages like polyandry, polygamy and line marriage, a form of polyamory. And don't forget that Hollywood long ago perfected the modern

American form of matrimony known as "serial marriages." But the next response from the government-addicted crowd will be: Who will protect the rights and needs of the children, especially in abusive situations? Libertarians will respond: Certainly not government. Pick a headline: "Child Protective Services Found Ineffective" or "Child Abuse Investigations Didn’t Reduce Risk, a Study Finds" or "Child protective services has 'outlived its usefulness,' pediatrician says," or et cetera. Since spousal abuse problems are much the same a free society that replaces government-run CPS and family services bureaucracies with voluntarily administered social organizations loses nothing and may even gain much. Get government out of marriage and treat adults like adults.

Don't miss a NATIONAL LIBERTARIAN NEWS EXAMINER article: subscribe to my email alerts and then have fun hitting all those other social media buttons too.

No comments: