How Conservatives Should Handle Gay Marriage
Kyle Sabo at The College Conservative suggests a more hands-off approach for Republicans on the issue of same-sex marriage:
On Politics and Civil Rights: Same-Sex Marriage
On October 6, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear seven appeals in same-sex marriage cases that have percolated up through the lower courts. After several years of federal district and appellate courts overturning same-sex marriage bans, the Supreme Court declined to rule in all seven cases, thus sounding the final bell in what many see as a critically important round of legal battles. Same-sex marriage is now legal in such far-flung and politically disparate places as Utah, Virginia and Wisconsin. Although the battle seems to be over for now, many states still lack marriage equality, and this is unlikely to be the last we have heard on this issue. On Fox News Special Report, Brit Hume unequivocally stated in his analysis that there is “no political momentum” for the opponents of marriage equality.
For proponents of same-sex marriage, the Supreme Court’s refusal to hear these cases has marked a turning point in the struggle for marriage equality. Short of deciding to take on these cases and clearly define what defines “marriage,” at least in this court’s opinion, allowing the lower courts’ rulings to stand is the closest thing to settling this issue as the country has gotten to date.
Opponents of same-sex marriage decry the courts being involved in this issue in any way, citing instead their desire to have the issue settled at the ballot box or on a state-by-state basis.
And somewhere in the middle of this, the Republican Party is deciding what it wants to do about same-sex marriage. Or is it?
The party of limited, less intrusive government seems to have a schizophrenic reaction when it comes to certain social issues, chief among them same-sex marriage. In this instance, many party leaders suddenly support the role of the courts in maintaining the notion that marriage can only exists between a man and a woman. To support this argument, someone invariably brings up Biblical references to support their view of “traditional marriage.”
It’s interesting to me that these same people don’t also cite the stoning of prostitutes as a justification for domestic abuse or the presence of slavery in the Bible as a justification for slavery in the United States some 2,000 years later. But then again, that’s a problem with literalism.
There are some voices, notably from the libertarian wing of the party, calling for this issue to be left up to the states. The Founding Fathers, as Rand Paul notes, didn’t “register their marriages in Washington, they registered it locally at the courthouse.”
Comments
The way to handle marriage is to get the gov out. The court should have no say in it. Get marriage out of the tax code. What we have are a bunch of activists who can’t win without getting the gov to impose more tyranny on a public already under too much.
these same people
A diagnostic giveaway of someone who has no argument, so resorts to vacuous assertions to generate some straw men.
One has to wonder what level of college is associated with “College Conservative”.
Am I reading College Insurrection or College Idiot Ramblings? So a couple of liberal, social progressive, political hacks, rule that citizens must accept their superior intellectual knowledge of what the Founding Fathers thought of the right of men marrying men and you think the political right should just fold like a cheap suit?
Am I reading College Insurrection or College Idiot Ramblings? So a couple of liberal, social progressive, political hacks, rule that citizens must accept their superior intellectual knowledge of what the Founding Fathers thought of the right of men marrying men and this guy Kyle Sabo (correction) thinks the political right should just fold like a cheap suit?
It’s difficult to determine how to respond to this odd article. The author apparently writes for “The College Conservative”, but seems to be ignorant of how conservatives think about these issues.
Where is this “party of limited, less intrusive government”? Is he talking about conservatives? We don’t have a party.
Conservatives are not schizophrenic about this issue. We don’t “support the role of the courts in maintaining the notion that marriage can only exists between a man and a woman”. We want the courts to stop trying to destroy that “notion” which has served humanity well for several millennia.
In discussions of same-sex marriage, someone invariably brings up the secular argument that using Biblical references is not allowed. Why should I pay any more attention to your secular arguments than you pay to my Biblical references?
But here’s a perfectly secular argument: When you tinker with the fabric of human relationships, there are likely to be negative consequences. Such as the destruction of families by easy divorce and by absentee fathers. And the destruction of 50 million human beings by abortion. Each time the progressives foist some new social experiment on us they say, “What could possibly go wrong?”
Sabo finds it interesting that conservatives don’t “cite the stoning of prostitutes as a justification for domestic abuse or the presence of slavery in the Bible as a justification for slavery in the United States some 2,000 years later. The first idea is incoherent – I can’t imagine what he’s talking about. The second shows his profound ignorance of the difference between the Biblical concept of slavery, and chattel slavery as practiced in the early years of this country.
The universities and colleges are really failing their students badly.
I’m not sure why there is such a backlash against the idea of accepting gay marriage. How do you reconcile the conservative stance that government should be less intrusive in people’s personal lives, but should have a say in whom people can love, marry, etc.?
Gibbie, your assumption is that the “fabric of human relationship” is found in man-to-woman sexual attraction. Where is your evidence for this mighty claim?
Casey,
There are few things more intrusive than having the definition of marriage changed by legislative or judicial fiat. An example of this kind of change is Roe vs Wade, in which the definition of “a person who warrants the protection of the state” was changed by judicial fiat. How has that worked out?
The conservative approach to making major changes to traditional understanding is to place the burden of proof on those who claim that the changes will be benign. Where is your evidence for this mighty claim?
You ask whether the government “should have a say in whom people can love, marry, etc.” Why, indeed, is government involved at all in marriage? The conservative view is that it is not for the purpose of enabling adults to find fulfillment in life, but rather to preserve the health of family relationships for the benefit of the children whose careful upbringing will make them productive contributors to society. In other words, to make better people.
It’s up to those who want change to show that their change will not negatively affect the goal of making better people.