Nobody to Blame But Themselves
I’ve written on “rights” before. Let me recap the two things I regard as being necessary for one to say “I have a right to______________”
- 1: It can obligate nobody to action.
- 2: It can be exercised with discretion.
An example: You have the right to freely give your political opinion on a subject. I am not obligated to listen, and you are not obligated to clear your opinion with government censors, or get a permit or license to speak.
Just bear with me. I’m laying groundwork.
You have no right to marry. Marriage is not a right, it is a privilege. If you get a marriage license it is the obligation of some governmental functionary, at least, to marry you; and you have to get their permission and meet certain qualifications, which vary in specifics from jurisdiction to jurisdiction. Argue “The way it ought to be” in all utopian myopia, but I repeat: it is not a right, it is a privilege. You need a license, and it lays obligations on people. As an employer it lays an obligation on me in certain cases to extend insurance coverage, for example, so it most certainly *IS* my business. Since I don’t want to have to extend coverage for your fourteen wives and NFL sized roster of kids, it is in my interest to argue against recognized polygamy.
Now we have the lavender lobby whining piteously over the recent decisions in NY and GA over gay marriage. And a more agonizing litany of woe you will never hear. “I thought this was AMERICA! What about my rights? It’s Discrimatory! Alas, alack, ochone, ochone, it is the end of that evil capitalist western civilization as we know it!(Gonz: Thought that was the point? Ah, I’m being catty. Meow. Pray continue.) How could this happen here? What right do they have to do this? Who gave them the power to step into private lives and…”
I’ll interrupt now, and answer that question. And that answer would be “The Collective ‘You.’”
See – once upon a time marriage was ruled by custom; it was a social thing. Being a religious sacrament, to get married, you went to the church of your choice and met with the pastor, met the qualifications of that church, and did the ceremony. Afterwards you began living as husband and wife with the approbation of the community, and may have notified the government of what you had done if there were legal and property issues. If you divorced, and there were issues, and the courts had to step in, they regarded it as a verbal contract, and assigned fault when they disposed of community property. Otherwise you worked it out among yourselves. The key is, you did not ask permission of the government to do so. You did not get a permit. You did not get a license. And if someone decided they didn’t feel you were really married, and disassociated from you, you had another set of decisions to make; appease them or not, for one.
But along came the Nanny-Statists. We can’t have those dang Mormons marrying multiple wimmin, it’s unchristian. We cain’t haave dem darn darkies marrying our fine white wimmin! Why look at that – old Jed tossed out Aunt Mary for something so petty as sleeping with every sailor in the dockyard, and left her without a penny! We can’t have that! So – rather than be a free people, we – I use the royal “we” – decided that we’d let the government regulate it, and control it.
And so, we lost a right, and turned it into a privilege. We have to go ask mommy “Please?” We have to get a “Mother May I?” You never have to ask “Mother May I?” to exercise a right. But we turned it over because we were lazy in liberty; because it was too much touble to work it out ourselves, because people were exercising rights in ways that displeased us, because people weren’t respecting the coices we made – or were making us suffer the consequences of them. Lose your job for abandoning your wife and family for the town bicycle (Everyone gets a ride!)? That’s none of their business, dammit!
And so it has grown over the years. We have no liberty to marry because we sacrificed it on the altar of the Nanny State. And now people piss and moan that those chickens are coming home to roost. And they – and we – have nobody to blame for it but ourselves.
The lavender lobby is in a bind. Because their goal is not so much to enjoy marriage and commitment – which they can do. I isn’t to get rights of inheritance – which they can have if they bother to make a will. It isn’t about domestic benefits – many companies and insuranace companies do offer them. Living wills, powers of attorney, contract law, deeds with full rights of survivorship – all this stuff can be had. It’s about shoving it in the face of the “Fundie” boogeyman. They are going to “Make” you call them “Mr(s) and Mr(s).” They want to force benefits from people who don’t want to give them, force landlords to rent to people they find morally objectionable, sue churches who do not endorse their lifestyle. While going down to the “Church of their choice” is an option, and having a ceremony is an option, and drawing up the paperwork to secure themselves is an option, and are non-statist libertarian options, they don’t want to do that. That would be too much like work, and wouldn’t arm them with the ability to coerce their ideological opponents.
As such, the “gay marriage” movement is anti-liberty, and I cannot support it. There is only one truly libertarian solution.
Get the state out of the marriage business.
Marriage is a sacrament. Want a marriage? Go to church. Don’t believe in God? Hire someone else, and get two witnesses. (I mean if you don’t have a religious faith, what does mumbo-jumbo mean anyway?) Want a domestic contract?
Get a lawyer. Spell it out. Who pays for what. Children, finances, insurance, what will break the partnership up, how long will it last, penalties for violating the terms and conditions, the whole ball of wax. One size does not fit all. Hell, some guy might want to enter in a partnership with his son becauise he has just been diagnosed with Alzheimers and wants to secure his son’s inheritance before he goes into the land of “Who the hell am I?” Such partner ships need be neither exclusive, or sexual. They cover the business end of things – which is what the Gay Righties profess to be about.
Want to call yourself “Husband and Wife” or “Dildo-er and Dildo-ee” or whatever? Go for it. And by gum, if someone doesn’t “respect” your partnership, cut them out of your life and/or don’t work for them, hire them, associate with them, or do business with them.
Now that’s a libertarian choice. And one I can be jiggy wid’.
And the only thing it won’t do is give the lavender lobby a club to bash their boogeymen with. And that they, and their allies, reject it tells you volumes of what they are really about.
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Stumble It!
July 8th, 2006 at 8:42 pm
Thank you!
Thank you Mr. Gonzman for writting so eloquently what I was thinking for years.
Here’s in Canada, mariage is a joke; you don’t need to be of opposed sex and you don’t even need to stay in it forever. It is so dead that 60% of the unions just go to waste over time.
On this, I believe that freedom is better than anything else. You want to hold your vows forever or have a “Prince&Princess” ball every year? do as your own wish. It might kill the divorce industry but it will pack the civil court so solid that lawyers will not see the difference!
July 9th, 2006 at 6:29 am
I don’t know if we were “lazy in liberty”. I think most of the people in power have convinced the great majority that more government, more rules and less freedom would mean greater safety and satisfaction.
America before the Nanny State was ideal in many ways, but that era has been so maligned that people equate anytime pre-1960s with racism and sexism.
I think it’s human nature for people to want to give up on freedom in exchange for safety. Our American system is evolving into a socialist state due to the influence of half our lawmakers. Islam is growing in the US because it also offers safety in it’s controlled universe of human experience.
It is a recurrent theme in history. It takes time, but eventually people will happily put chains on themselves if they are offered safety and fairness.