WOIFM

Uncle Sam's Blessing

Deroy Murdock rebuts the cover article in the print version of the National Review, by looking rationally at gay marriage. Murdock takes the libertarian slant on things, asking, why do we need the government's permission to tell us how to marry?

Since gay people will not go away, social conservatives should welcome a strategy to advance homosexual fidelity and stability. ...It should not be government's concern which individual a person identifies as an heir, hospital visitor or recipient of Social Security survivor's payments.

Murdock is right when he says that homosexual couples making lifelong commitments to each other pose no threat to like-minded heterosexual couples. If a gay man down the street finds the man of his dreams, that is no way lessens the mutual devotion between me and my wife. In fact, having stable families in the neighborhood (whether they are "family" or not) is more likely to strengthen my community and provide a stable environment for my own family.

Marriage and our society intersect in two primary places: government and God. Our government sanctions marriage in all sorts of ways. This is even true of taxation when one looks at all the myriad ways government taxes its citizens and gives small breaks to married couples. Once we replace our income-distribution model with a fair tax system, singles and married couples will enjoy equally low taxes anyway, so that point will be moot. Almost every other spousal privilege can be handled through durable powers of attorney, many of which are easier to obtain than a marriage license. (When's the last time you had to get your blood drawn before the government let you obtain a durable power of attorney?) So the best answer, the libertarian answer, is to get government out of marriage entirely.

As for God, well, who are we to say He doesn't approve of gay men and women pledging their lives to each other? If God is love, isn't God there, too? The old argument about Leviticus 18:22 has been pretty thoroughly debunked as the province of hypocrites and absolute literalists. (Unless, perhaps, you have indeed sacrificed a bull to the Lord this week?)

Link wrangler: Reductio ad Absurdum.