I’m a fiscal conservatve. Along with that, I’m a legal constructionist and a social libertarian, and a personal Christian by the bye.
And I generally take that “libertarian” side pretty seriously. I don’t much care what other people do with their lives; I’d much appreciate it if they felt the same and let me live my personal life the way I want to; I’m happy to return the favor.
So my approach to “gay rights”, as a rule, is driven by all these factors. All people must be equal before the law. Nothing else should modify that statement – not race, gender or religion, not orientation, nothing.
My faith sees marriage as a guy and a gal getting together to start a family. My libertarian side says that government should allow people to sign contracts, including civil “marriages”, and enforce them (and since goats and children can’t sign contracts, the “human-animal marriage will be legal” argument is something of a red herring, and it should be a fairly simple thing to legislate that groups can’t get the same rights as inter-personal “marriage” contracts without violating anyone’s right).
I happen to see marriage as a religious institution, not a civil one. In the event I ever get married again, I’ll endeavor to avoid the state bureaucracy, to the point of eschewing the government license if possible, and sticking with the church ceremony. And, by the way, since I see marriage as a religious institution, I’d be disingenuous if I didn’t add that a church might be perfectly within its theological purview to find a scriptural justification for same-sex marriage. It’s difficult, of course; no major religion anywhere in the world believes any such thing – but never say never. If theology were engineering, the Episcopals in particular could build the Panama Canal.
And I’ll exercise my right not to get married there!
I’m a Tom Emmer supporter. While I kept quiet about it, I’ve been supporting him since last summer. There were several moments that tipped it over for me; I’ve written about one of them on this blog before. When an audience member asked him about gay marriage, Emmer responded without skipping a beat that while he was a Catholic who shared his church’s beliefs on what marriage is, that the only real issue in the upcoming election is jobs and the economy – and the governor would have absolutely nothing to do with any legislation on gay marriage, anyway.
And I thought “there’s a guy with the right priorities”. And I still do.
———-
The “MNForward” flap has been a classic case of astroturfing. Now, a writer for a “Gawker”-class snarkblog wrote me last week taking umbrage at my calling it “astroturf” because…well, apparently because his publication had written about it and they just don’t do astroturf, nosireebob. I wasn’t entirely clear on that point.
(I was thinking about writing about how the biggest thing standing in the way of acceptance of gay rights has been gay activists – but The Onion said it better. And they’re liberals, so they can get away with it).
But the fact is that the issue took off when the Alliance for a Better Minnesota started pushing it as a wedge; gay groups ran with it, with the able help of the regional and finally national media, trying to portray an action by very, very few people as an epic groundswell (that was going to harm Target financially, no less) even though gay issues are pretty much a nonentity for Emmer…
…and all three of the DFL contenders, none of whom has ever wasted a moment of their precious time introducing any bills to legalize gay marriage in Minnesota or speaking at all outside safe DFL districts about the issue. Paper statements on how important it is, sure – but they have yet to put their bills where their mouths are.
The writer pointed me to the DFLers’ paper positions, as well as Emmer’s support for a constitutional amendment favoring traditional marriage, and asked me if I actually knew anything about Minnesota politics, or “am I wasting my time?”
In retrospect, I should have responded “I have virtually nothing against gay marriage outside my own personal religious observance. Ask me about subject I care about, or consider it a waste of time and leave me be”. I made the mistake of reading his writing about Emmer to that point – the sort of ad-hominem context-smashing that fits in in places like “Gawker” or “Dump Bachmann” – and just threw him in my spam folder.
Here’s the ironic part; if Tom Emmer were genuinely “rabidly anti-gay” and the gay community is genuinely concerned about a constitutional amendment against gay marriage, they would be better off with him in the governor’s mansion (or, obviously, out of the House, although that wasn’t gonna happen by electoral means until Emmer felt like retiring) – since the governor has nothing to do with Consitutional Amendments. Nothing.
At any rate, this issue exists for only one reason, as far as the DFL spin machine and Dayton’s personal smear shop are concerned; to get moderates to think “Emmer is intolerant”. Which is absurd; he, like most of us, has strong, personal beliefs on the subject, as is his right. It does not make him “anti-gay”, in the sense of “hating gay people”; it merely means he, like over 2/3 of the American people even in liberal cesspools like California and Oregon, opposes one policy plank of the gay agenda.
That is all.
The Dems need to turn this campaign away from what will be the key issue, and the issue that should matter to Minnesotans; what is going to do the most to bring jobs, prosperity and fiscal sanity back to Minnesota. Because while DFLers may or may not cAare, moderates and swing voters need jobs too. And even the DFL knows that Mark Dayton loses that debate.
And so the DFL, the media and the smear machine need to make this about emotional side issues – to distract the distractible.
As far as this blog is concerned, this election is about jobs and the economy. And I, like the parts of Minnesota that this election will affect most – workers, taxpayers, regular schlemiels – will be paying attention to that, rather than the cynical, astroturf side issue from now on.
Oh, yeah; Emmer’s going to win by 2-3 points.
(Disclosure: I don’t work for the Emmer campaign, and never have. I don’t get anything from them, other than what I get out of my sources on the campaign. It’s called “reporting”).
Mr. Berg: “…government should allow people to sign contracts, including civil “marriages”, and enforce them (and since goats and children can’t sign contracts, the “human-animal marriage will be legal” argument is something of a red herring…”
How very diverse.
Children can sign contracts and children can enforce those contracts against adults.
As for goats, the 9th Circuit is reviewing the matter. A recent poll show that in the San Francisco area, sheep were preferred to goats by a 3-1 margin.
Seriously, if you can write laws on the fly and are not connected to any constitutional or Old Testament limits, then sooner or later goats will be eligible to vote–I predict they vote Democratic.
A flat-out ‘social libertarian’ would not want her government to subsidize private relationships, but our government rewards long-term coupling and discourages marriage dissolution. Culturally we praise those (and they praise themselves) who stay married–and we stigmatize the divorced and the non-coupled. Governmental and social encouragement of marriage = “social engineering”. You may view marriage as a religious institution and not a civil one, Mitch–but few others do. Perhaps we need to continue subsidizing such coupling, for the various benefits it confers, though the discussion of ‘gay marriage’ seems to have crowded out discussion of whether we have that underlying subsidization calibrated correctly.
not connected to any constitutional or Old Testament limits
Allowing adults to sign contracts is connected with constituional limits.
The Old Testament isn’t necessarily binding on the US government.
We subsidize home ownership through the mortgage interest credit. We came to the valid conclusion that our communities would be cleaner, safer and more stable by encouraging ownership.
We don’t have a “flat-out ’social libertarian’ ” society, and we never will. Our country was built on Judeo/Christian principle. It doesn’t matter how much people may whine about this fact, it is fact. Marriage is part and parcel.
The problem with trying to combine fiscal conservatism and social liberalism is that they don’t really go together.
People who bear children out of wedlock require subsidies from the state to raise them. People who marry and divorce, ditto, if there are kids involved.
“Social liberalism” weakens the family in these two ways. When the family is weakened, the power and the strength of the state is increased.
One thing to remember…being a libertarian sometimes means letting bad people win. All of those people who turned the other way during Jim Crow and segregation did no one a favor. If someone today pledges to destroy the Boy Scouts or Catholic church, looking away is not a good plan.
Terry wrote:
“People who bear children out of wedlock require subsidies from the state to raise them. People who marry and divorce, ditto, if there are kids involved. ”
Real world Terry, there are people who have and support children outside of wedlock – including gay couples who adopt, lesbian couples who take advantage of sperm doners and sperm banks.
There are people who are married who need and receive subsidies.
As to people who marry and divorce – I’ll leave it to our host here, Mitch, to address that subject. I just don’t see him as the subsidized by the state type.
And there are lots of people who have received assistance for a brief period of their lives – married, single, heterosexual or homosexual, who do not continue to receive assistance after a finite shorter period — not for example, through the entire duration of raising their child or children.
We should not establish any rights – and marriage has been determined to be a right – on the basis Terry outlines.
People who are adults should be allowed to marry their partner of choice.
People who want kids can have kids – married or single, straight or gay. Their legal marital status does not confer on them like someone waving a magic wand excellence in parenting.
Parenting is parenting.
Marriage is a different commitment from parenting, which sometimes overlaps and sometimes does not.
Assistance is and should be based on need, not parental statuas, not marital status.
I think your assumptions are a bit dated Terry.
http://www.webmd.com/mental-health/news/20051012/study-same-sex-parents-raise-well-adjusted-kids
Tony,
You got it wrong. Goats are free market/personal rights types. If you have ever had your car parked where goats can be near it, you will understand what I mean. To expain: I took some yard waste to a private composting facility near Winona. They had goats. All the goats came around to do what goats do. While I was talking to the site owner, one goat, with surgical precision, proceeded to eat the “Town & Country” letters off the lift gate of my van (and the goat never scratched the paint!)
No, goats would definately vote republican!
For K-Rod:
The event was true. The post was a bit of levity.
No, goats would definately vote republican!
We all know the Democrats have the Sheep Vote locked up.
Dog Gone said:
“marriage has been determined to be a right”
By constant repetition of the words?
Gavin said:
“Culturally we praise those (and they praise themselves) who stay married–and we stigmatize the divorced and the non-coupled. Governmental and social encouragement of marriage = “social engineering”.”
All “social engineering” is bad? The “social engineering” you point to seems to be old, reliable “social engineering” with clear benefits to government and society. *shrug*
Dog Gone, all I can say about your last comment is that it is dumb. Really dumb.
No link between out of wedlock births and welfare dependency? No link between divorce and poverty?
Work a few days each month at a soup kitchen. That will open your eyes.
“marriage has been determined to be a right”
Healthcare is a right.
Housing is a right.
A “living wage” job is a right.
Free transportation is a right.
Eating is a right.
T.V. is a right.
Clothing is a right.
Being loved is a right.
The Hair Club for Men is a right.
We could go on all day. That’s our right.
I forgot Viagra. An erection is a right.
But driving is a privilege.
But driving with an erection can make it hard to shift.
Wait, what was this thread about again?
“has been determined to be a right”.
There goes that pesky passive voice again. No direct object, marriage has been determined to be a right by . . . itself? Or did “we” do it?
So this week “we” decide that marriage is a right to be enjoyed by all, regardless of gender, and next week “we” decide, via an injunction, that marriage is not such a right.
“We” just can’t make up our minds, can we?
The Old Testament isn’t necessarily binding on the US government.
Which is just as well, considering that my kids have been known to talk back to me. And neither is your folks’ New Testament — which, I’m thinking, just as well after December 7, 1941, and on subsequent occasions.
As to the whole Emmer/SSM thing, I come at it from a different angle — I disagree with you and Emmer and most of my conservative friends on SSM, as I think it’s good policy, all in all, even though I’d strongly prefer that it come via a Constitutional amendment, rather than any other way.
On the other hand, I’m not going to hold it against Tom Emmer or Barack Obama that they’re against SSM, even though I disagree with them; there’s other issues where their opinions, as elected officials, are much more likely to have an effect, which is why I’m strongly suspecting that I’ll be voting for Emmer this year, and against Obama in 2012.
For those folks who think that the right should make a big deal of the CA decision, btw, note the consternation from the likes of Rachel Maddow and the just-this-side-of-literally rabid rantings from Olbermann over the general shrug on most of the right. Sounds to me like the consensus of the yawning conservatives is not only a reflection of caring a lot more about other issues, but good, sound political strategy, as well.
Kermit Says:
August 7th, 2010 at 1:01 pm
I forgot Viagra. An erection is a right.
ACTUALLY! If you have Medicare or Medicaid Viagra is covered. On the other hand if you are a working stiff (pun intended) on Health Partners Viagra is not covered.
If this leads to a “food fight” versus Wal-Mart wally-world win. Activists, especially lefty activists don’t follow “marching orders”. I have read hundreds of comments on the Target gay flap. Let’s see! Target donates something like three times as much to left causes. We also have the union dues as a lefty political ATM (think Governor Ventura and the 15,000 state social worker contract that tried to include gay domestic partner benefits for under 1% of the union members.
Let’s see! Target is CORPORATE. Target imports a lot from China. Then you have the “buy local” types and the anti-materialism types. Same criticism of Wal-Mart but Wal-Mart “rolls with the punches” and is six times the size of Target after decades of lefty activists criticism. With the Target CEO “apologizing” every other lefty activist looking for their fifteen seconds of fame will go after Target. Over at Wally-Word all they have to do is sit back and say “We comply with the law, as defined by law”.
soliah;
You may (or, may not) be surprised over how many of those “buy local” advocates, don’t do so.
While shopping myself, I have seen countless people, sporting their local collective pins, purchase foreign made tools over the higher priced US made version. Isn’t hypocrisy great? Union slaves cry support their union brothers and sisters, but only for gimmes; then, they buy Chinese!
Economic reality; these are the people that are sending the manufacturing jobs across the pond!
“People who are adults should be allowed to marry their partner of choice.”
“Adult” status takes more than reaching a chronicological age. Anyone that can keep a straight face and say that two guys, or two women playing house together is, in any rational way “=” to a normal male/female headed household is not an adult.
Children that are subjected to the circus tent atmosphere of teh gay “family” are being abused, and I’m confident that some day soon enough adults will get together to put a stop to it.