Two questions to help you decide your vote on the Minnesota Marriage Amendment
- If Pat and Chris want to form a business partnership in your home state, should their genders play any role in determining whether that partnership is legal?
- Should the government play any role in deciding the rules regarding religious ceremonies like christenings and bar mitzvahs?
Conservatives, take note: As University of Chicago economics professor Richard Thaler wrote in the Sunday New York Times, if you answered no to both those questions, then you really can’t support government interference in who has a legal right to be married.
Thaler explained that those who support “domestic partnerships” and such arrangements as alternatives to same-sex marriage are missing the point: The 1996 Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) prohibits unmarried partners from receiving more than 1,000 federal benefits that married couples receive. (More on that in a guest post later this week.)
Thaler concludes with an evocative and unrealistic solution: Weddings would become strictly private, nongovernment regulated ceremonies. Marriage, in legal terms, would be domestic partnerships, reflected in an amended DOMA law.
Hey, why not? Everyone knows corporations are people, and they're allowed to merge.
Anyway, DOMA may well not survive in the long run: Two federal courts have already ruled it unconstitutional.
As Thaler notes, the conservatives usually want to get government off the backs of citizens. How can conservatives, then, be so supportive of laws that interfere with personal liberty?
(Statue of Liberty photo courtesy Wikimedia Commons)
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Comments
Conservative values
Hi, Ron. Thanks for taking the time to read and respond to my blog. I know what you mean, and your comment about these politicians wanting people to vote only when it's in their perceived self-interest is evocative.
In fairness, one thing I've seen the past few months is that some folks who consider themselves "true conservatives" (I'm no expert, to say the least) resent government intrusion in personal liberty as much as you and I. I think at this point Barry Goldwater himself wouldn't pass the Republicans' litmus test. That's a distinction between old-time conservatives and the modern Republican Party as a whole. At the same time, a number of elected and influential Minnesota Republicans like Tim Kelly oppose the Minnesota Marriage Amendment, and I applaud them for sticking to their principles.
Conservatives and personal liberties
"How can conservatives, then, be so supportive of laws that interfere with personal liberty?" That's easy--because they're fearful hypocrites, that's why. They apparently care only about money and/or power over others. The only time they seem to want public referendums on an issue is when it's convenient for their agenda. Otherwise, they don't want people to vote--mostly because when the majority of people vote, they vote Democratic. Conservatives have a flawed, sick ideology that's destructive to the progress and growth of society.
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