Issue: Personal Liberty: Gay Marriage?

[c10h14n2]

Can anybody clue me in of what a "Constitutionalist's" stance on Gay Marriage be?

From what I understand, it would be unconstitutional to have any legislation condemning or condoning the addition of gays into the legal term marriage - at the federal level. Does this mean that Dr. Paul would not pursue legislation on this issue at all? Does he mean to just leave it up to the states to decide?

To say that gay marriage is not a government issue and the the government should not have involvement in this issue is fine and good if gays cold marry. There wouldn't be any issue if a gay could get a states marriage license, but they can't. There needs to be more clarity in the existing law - both state and federal since taxes are paid to both entities and legal rights are applied via both entities.

I know Gay Marriage is not really a super hot election issue - at least not one you would win or lose over, but as a gay, I can see how we, as a group could potentially vote based on this issue alone. That is dangerous, I know this should not be how people vote, but everyone has that one election issue that affects them personally. That last check mark on the either the pro or con side of that issue could swing their vote either way.

Personally, I feel that all marriage at the state and federal level be converted to "civil union" and leave true marriage under God to the churches. The churches would then have ever right to deny marriage to gays.

[Yorick]

I thought I had read that Ron Paul personally was against gay marriage, but that it's the kind of thing he would leave up to individual states were he elected.

The problem with a candidate agreeing with Gay Marriage is that there are a lot of people who aren't ready for it. Slavery ended more than a hundred years ago but you still have a lot of racism around today. The newer generations are getting better with it for the same reason the older people aren't. It's what you were raised with. The same can be said for women's rights.

Being gay wasn't something that was even largely talked about until the 60's-80's. Whereas when I was in high school I had a lot of friends who were openly gay and had no problem with it. It's something I was exposed to early enough to not form any prejudice about.

I think it will be a long time before we get a candidate who is really for it and willing to champion the idea, but the fact that it's been brought up and talked about the past few years has been great. It's one step closer to having equality for everyone.

It's understandable that everyone has one issue that will sell it for them. For some people it's the war. For some it's gun control. Being gay is an integral part of your life, it should be the issue you care about the most.

I agree with what you mean about having "marriage" as the church definition and 'civil unions' referring to the "merging" of two lives under the state/federal government. I really think that would be the best solution.

[mikelovesgod]

Constitutionalists will let states decide.

Yorick... that was a horrible analogy. Slavery and homosexuality cannot be lumped together. Homosexuality is a violation of the natural law, slavery isn't.

[Yorick]

Yorick... that was a horrible analogy. Slavery and homosexuality cannot be lumped together. Homosexuality is a violation of the natural law, slavery isn't.

In your opinion.

[EDIT] PS: Thanks for proving my point.

[Bradley in DC]

I have to start by saying how gratifying it is to me to see both the level of discourse and analysis and also the wide spectrum of people coming together.

I'm not sure this is a single "Constitutionalist" position but it would not be unconstitutional to oppose gay marriage at the federal level. This was the issue for the Defense of Marriage Act which Dr. Paul supported that defined marriage for federal purposes as between one man and one woman. I'm sure a major part of the reason was to limit taxpayer-funded welfare, etc., not as an attack on gays. Dr. Paul is NOT homophobic, I assure you.

Marriage was not a governmental issue in this country the way it is now until the Progressive Era. I do genealogy and have learned that state and local governments didn't even issue marriage licenses until the first part of the last century (different years in different states and even there it took some time to become uniformly enforced). Historically, civil law was custom enforced and marriage was an ecclesiastical law matter.

Of course, as all of us Hayakians know, customs and traditions evolve over time and know that the spontaneous order out of chaos approach is better than a few people with imperfect knowledge planning for the rest of us. There was a great debate on the issue of gay marriage on National Review Online with both sides trying to argue they were right based on Hayakian principles! Glimmers of what makes this country great, but I digress...

Dr. Paul has said, and I agree, that to the extent that government is involved it should be at the state, not federal, level but that ideally all would be better off leaving this issue to civil society (recognizing that governments are the default enforcer of private contracts). He would oppose an amendment to the Constitution on the issue defining marriage. I hope this helps.

[NewEnd]

Ron Paul voted against a bill in DC to fund gay adoptions.

He also voted against the "defense of marriage act" which would have banned gay marriage.

[Bradley in DC]

Ron Paul voted against a bill in DC to fund gay adoptions.

He also voted against the "defense of marriage act" which would have banned gay marriage.

He generally votes against all spending measures!

He voted, if I remember right, for DOMA but against a Constitutional amendment for the same.

[Exponent]

I've heard him say (can't remember where, some video on YouTube) that he'd actually prefer that there wasn't even such a thing as a marriage license. He didn't really understand why people needed to get a license to be married. I wonder that same thing myself. Unless we want to move in the direction of regulating who can and can't get married. Wait, we already have done that. The next step in such a direction would be to disallow other types of marriage that those in power consider to be detrimental. People with STDs? People who are infertile? Muslims? Atheists? People who refuse to sign a contract with a federal Department of Marriage and Families? Once the federal government gets rolling with regulation, it can be hard to stop it.

Unless you have a damn good reason to regulate something, it's probably safer to avoid regulation. Some people think that allowing homosexual marriage will be the downfall of America, so they think they have a damn good reason, but that's obviously not a view that is shared by a strong majority. And since it isn't, that generally means that America, considered as a whole, as a singular entity, does not have a damn good reason to regulate it.

[Man from La Mancha]

What two people do on their own that doesn't hurt me is none of my business. But what I have a problem with is the changing of the language. Language is the glue which holds us together it needs to be some what consistent. New words can be added but old ones should mean the same. Marriage as defined by language in most cultures for 1000's of years is marriage is between a Man and a Woman. You don't go calling an apple a orange or a man is now called woman just to make you feel good. Its like bowing down to the double speak of Gorge Orwell. If there has to be a license form of joining same sex couples then make the proper word for it. Such as Gayage or whatever pleases you. Our modern technology has created many new words with out no problem. Most people I know don't have a problem with same sex couples they just don't like people changing the meaning of what they hold sacred. If the gay community would get over this point I think they would have much less opposition.

[Exponent]

What two people do on their own that doesn't hurt me is none of my business. But what I have a problem with is the changing of the language. Language is the glue which holds us together it needs to be some what consistent. New words can be added but old ones should mean the same. Marriage as defined by language in most cultures for 1000's of years is marriage is between a Man and a Woman. You don't go calling an apple a orange or a man is now called woman just to make you feel good. Its like bowing down to the double speak of Gorge Orwell. If there has to be a license form of joining same sex couples then make the proper word for it. Such as Gayage or whatever pleases you. Our modern technology has created many new words with out no problem. Most people I know don't have a problem with same sex couples they just don't like people changing the meaning of what they hold sacred. If the gay community would get over this point I think they would have much less opposition.

But from what I gather (because I can imagine thinking the exact same thing if I were gay) is that many homosexuals really and truly believe that the relationships that many of them in are indeed best described by the word "marriage". Language is indeed a very important thing. It is also a very relative thing. Just as much as you think that the gay community should "get over this point", I think that the community opposing gay marriage should learn to really see things from other people's perspectives, and see that homosexuals truly do think that what they have is essentially a marriage. By offering legal status to heterosexual unions under the name "marriage", and denying the same to homosexual unions, to homosexuals probably feels like others are saying to them, "The relationship you have isn't really as legitimate as you feel it is." That's rather insulting.

I know it's a complicated issue, but I just request that others consider it from the opposing viewpoint. Just imagine if you and a significant other felt like you had a relationship that was worthy of the word "marriage", but people, most notably the government, refused to acknowledge this, and at best referred to it as a "union". It would be rather insulting, and I bet many in the anti-gay marriage community would be quite up in arms over it if it happened to one of their own for some other reason.