I suppose it's time for me to weigh in on the gay marriage debate. Actually, I've done so [broken link! FIXME] before, but the events in North Carolina and with respect to Obama's recent speech, I felt like bringing it up again, since it's a matter of some concern among many of my friends and acquaintances.
In this matter, my libertarian instincts predominate, and my view has remained essentially unchanged over a period of almost 30 years, from back when I first was confronted with the idea of "gay marriage." I knew people, even when I was in elementary school – friends of my parents – who were essentially committed gay couples, living together. And at that time, what struck me as ridiculous was not that the state or that society should have some say in banning or disallowing or failing to recognize these types of relationships. No… what struck me then – and still strikes me now – as utterly bizarre is that the state should play some role in defining ANYONE's relationship with another person.
The fact is that I don't believe in gay marriage. But not for the typical reason. You see… I don't believe in straight marriage, either. I believe that the state should stay out of EVERYONE's bedroom, equally.
If people want things like survivorship rights, or co-parenting rights, or adoption, or whatever… these are legal constructs or contracts like any other (and not unlike business partnerships, for example), and they should be drafted and viewed as such, and not automatically conferred on people who take the time to go through some ritual or another, be it in a church or in a temple or in front of a judge.
I confess that I, myself, was once married. But Michelle and I agreed at the time that it was something we were doing for the contractual and legal benefits, and we both strongly resented the idea of having to get a state imprimatur on our essentially private relationship.
Rather than advocating for gay marriage, I would rather advocate for the abolition of the state-based recognition of ANY marriage. That's not to say the state would ban marriage, but rather that it should become "blind" to whether two people are in a relationship or not, to the maximum extent legally practicable. When it comes to things like the legal guardianship of children, there are many laws in place that have nothing to do with marriage that ensure parental rights and obligations, for example – were this not the case, the extremely high levels of out-of-wedlock (and what an abhorent term that is!) births in our society wouldn't be functionally possible. If two people want to get married, that's a decision that lies between those two people and their families and their communities. If, on the other hand, they want to file jointly with the IRS, that's something they can work out with the IRS as a sort of legal partnership unconnected to what they do in bed or church, without recourse to a legal concept like "marriage."
The blogger IOZ, as is often the case, makes a brilliant case for such a view as I'm sympathetic to, by pointing out the inherent ridiculousness of public documents and figures (such as North Carolina's constitution or President Obama) staking out important positions on either side of the "gay marriage" issue. He does this quite cleverly, by creating an extreme, satirical example of the same type of thinking:
"I know marriage is supposed to be some, like, basic physical property of the human universe, paired protons and neutrons or quark spin or some shit or whatever, but really, uh, like, what if the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania banned slightly awkward social acquaintances in which you do have each other's cell numbers but you don't really feel comfortable calling even though you need to borrow his pick-up and you're pretty sure he'd be cool with it but maybe you'll just text him instead. Then the 3rd Circuit overturns the law on twenty-first amendment grounds. The President of the United States says that although he would probably have sent a private Facebook message, his views on the issue are evolving." – IOZ