Watching the debates of the Republican candidates, I couldn’t help but cringe every time they mentioned to be an advocate of individual rights, only to then lay out a plan of how they would go about violating the rights of certain individuals. Where are their principles? Is all this talk of individual rights just talking points to rev up their base? Sadly, it appears so.
The Issue
The specific issue I’m talking about (although the above statement can be applied to many other issues) is that of gay marriage. Yep, I’m going there.
One would be objectively wrong in claiming to be a proponent of individual rights while simultaneously defending the traditional view of marriage as being between one man and one woman only. To understand why this is true, it’s important to understand what a marriage is at its most basic, fundamental level. When you look at a marriage, ignoring the subjective characteristics (the physical details) of the parties involved, we see that at its nature, it is a voluntary agreement, known as a contract, between individuals for both social and economic purpose/benefit. Now, although America’s founding documents specifically mentions our right to life, liberty, property, and the pursuit of happiness, the right to contract is an individual right derived from the other four fundamental rights (remember, what precedes that list of four in the Declaration of Independence is the phrase “among these,” meaning our individual rights are not limited to just those four).
The Arguments
An argument I hear ad nauseam by opponents of same-sex marriage is grounded in the idea that marriage has traditionally been between one man and one woman, and thus, should stay that way. Man has also traditionally been ruled by tyrants. Ought we renounce our democratic republic and instate a king? The United States is also a relatively young nation. Should we pack up and go “home” because, traditionally speaking, America is a one-off in the history of man? This argument suggests man ought to return to the cave where he came from and to reject all forms of progress. There is just no logical basis for it.
As a subset of the “traditional” argument, many Christians believe marriage is solely a religious institution, and therefore, because the Bible disapproves of homosexuals, they have no right to enter into a marriage. The Pope himself has recently attacked the idea of same-sex marriage saying that “policies which undermine the family threaten human dignity and the future of humanity itself.” But this ignores reality. Religions do not hold a monopoly on issuing marriage licenses. Non-religious people enter into marriages all the time. As I’ve mentioned prior, it’s all about contracts. To invoke religion into the forming of contracts is to treat the law in a subjective manner. That is to say, the law would apply differently to everybody. Some people can legally marry while others cannot. And to answer the Pope’s concern, the very thing that actually threatens human dignity, humanity itself, and undermines the entire society is allowing the violation of individual rights.
But, profoundly, the major point argued by opponents of same-sex marriage is that they believe homosexuality is a choice. Irrelevant. Whether homosexuality is a choice or not has no bearing on the validity of one’s rights. But to say homosexuality is a choice is to say heterosexuality is a choice as well. And if that’s the case, then what we have is a system where certain individuals have special privileges and legal protections based on the specific group they choose to belong to. Earth to Republicans: that is not individualism, that is collectivism; again, leading to a legal system subjective in nature, with different sets of rights for different groups of people. Once again, this would lead to no uniform objective standard of morality/legality that applies to everyone equally, which is the entire point of a proper legal system to begin with! It would stand to reason then that the group with more political pull at any given time could decide who get rights and who does not. Interestingly enough, that’s exactly what we are seeing with the social conservatives and groups like Focus on the Family in regards to this specific issue. The Republican candidates for president need to understand that defending traditional marriage is supporting a form of statism. Social conservatism is a euphemism for tyranny!
Freedom of Religion
With all that said, individuals must remain respectful of a religious institution’s views and the rights of the individuals who run them to freely exercise their faith. Translated into the real world, this simply means that the clergy of churches, synagogues, mosques, etc., must NEVER be forced to officiate over same-sex marriages, as that in and of itself, would be an abrogation of their rights. In a truly free society, the legality of same-sex marriage would only apply to the state, in terms of the courts arbitrating between disputes of the contractees. Religious institutions can certainly chose to officiate over such ceremonies, but they are free to chose not to as well. People are free to have their own opinions and to act in accordance with their own values. Just don’t force that view point through the law. After all, law is reason free from faith.
Final Word
In conclusion, it is quite evident to me that the political party that holds any semblance of hope for mankind in terms of defending individual rights subscribes to a philosophy of half-baked individualism. They all too often make concessions at the behest of religious doctrine. What Republicans need to understand is that God or no God, man has rights. The sooner they can articulate and defend that message, the sooner we will all be better off.
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