Marriage for Me... But Not for Thee

This is my quick post to an article by Tim Carney of the Evans-Novak Political Report on the issue of gay "marriage," the meaning of which has been put into an ironclad lockbox here in California thanks to state Senator Pete Knight -- whose son is not only gay but also a former member of the United States Air Force -- and the majority of the California electorate (Democrats included). Gray Davis' signature on AB 205, before he is rightfully kicked out of office, will be one of the few salutary measures to come out of his administration. In contrast, one can only hope that George W. Bush will counsel the Texas delegation at next year's nominating convention not to bow their heads and raise their hands in "prayer," as they did so when gay Arizona Congressman Jim Kolbe spoke in 2000. That display of condescension smacked of the same sort of hayseed "fair play" when Texas allowed blacks to attend law school in an integrated setting -- but only if they sat beind an opaque screen, so as not to distract from the whites' learning environment. See Sweatt v. Painter, 339 U.S. 629 (1950).

One can't help but wonder why the Vice President's wife, who was once a leading voice of conservatism on CNN's Crossfire and is still a resident scholar with the American Enterprise Institute, has been so quiet since her dismal performance on ABC's This Week in Election 2000. I do miss Lynne Cheney. When Cokie Roberts brought up the indisputable fact that her daughter, Mary Cheney, is a lesbian she went into an awkward defensive stutter that signaled her relative departure from public discourse. Mary Cheney has been a long-time diversity consultant for Coors Brewing Company, an enterprise which once used polygraph tests to weed out its homosexual employees. I guess that corporate America is far ahead of those who wield political power. This is simply further evidence that society is, once again, far ahead of government.

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As an avowed member of the "Leave Us Alone Coalition," I eschew the notion of a "culture war" entirely. When the state is involved in ephemeral notions like "culture" and "compassion," there is but one predictable result: a larger, more authoritarian system of regulation that bolsters bureaucratic caprices and encourages more theft of private property.

I agree with Milton Friedman's metaphor of the state as a "neutral umpire," which he outlined in "Capitalism and Freedom." Ideally, there would be no need for state intervention in private contractual arrangements. In the present climate, however, the enforcement of contractual expectations is one of the seminal (and more innocuous) functions of the state.

Here in California, both houses of the legislature have passed the most comprehensive domestic partnership bill in the nation. But three years ago, voters passed Proposition 22, an initiative statute that added the following language to the state's family code: "Only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California." A legal battle is sure to ensue.

If the state, and those authoritarians who relish the exercise of power over others, must stake a claim to the word "marriage," so be it. It is then time for those of us who recognize that government's ultimate aim is the preservation of individual liberty to let them wallow in their Newspeak. Hopefully society -- including the millions of homosexuals who are systematically denied their privileges and immunities as citizens -- can flourish in spite of them.