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The above post was supposed to be a logical, relevant post, but the anti-spam prevented me from posting.

I'm torn. On the one hand, I am against government regulating how individuals consort.

On the other, this will limit the number of people who receive priveleges for their voluntary associations.

On second thought, I'm against this. Government would still be deciding on what type of behavior to reward and punish.

"The policy of the American government is to leave their citizens free, neither restraining nor aiding them in their pursuits." – Thomas Jefferson

Read the article. They raise an interesting argument that "conservatives" would have a hard time arguing against and I'd side with if I wasn't a libertarian.

This legislation is not designed to pass.

Gay groups have proposed it in light of justifications given by judges, politicians and others that marriage should not extend to gay couples, because they can't have children.

It is not supposed to be taken seriously, but rather as a political statement that the current system maintains double standards for straights and gays.

Personally, I think proposing it was an excellent idea. It obviously won't pass, but it will embarrass the government.

This is similar to a former Minnesota gubernatorial candidate's proposal to allow abortions into the 4th trimester. (He lost to Jesse Ventura)

Abortions should be allowed for anyone who thinks their child will grow up to be a politician, specifically a Republican or Democrat.

As Libertarians I think we can agree that marriage (as sanctioned by the government) should be extended to all. I personally think that polygamy should be allowed as long as all parties are adults and consenting to the arrangement (meaning they know they will have to share their spouse). This measure is definitely intended to bring the spotlight to one of the arguments used against gay marriage.
Of course on its merits this proposal is against our principles. But as a protest measure it is great.
One of the reasons I left the Republicans is because the only time they were willing to take a stand was to fight gay marriage. I personally don't care who gets married as long as they don't force me to.

Suppose this did pass. Immediately, the next problem would arise: how do we stop them from having children simply in order to fulfill the marriage requirement? (I'm assuming that the method of obtaining children through surrogates or adoption will be upheld as sufficient.)

Obviously, a better reason to have children is necessary, for example, to live out one's ambition, or the ever popular "oops."

A scheme to make sure that they actually love the child and are competent to take care of it, would naturally arise. Within an election cycle, a child licence would be required for every prospective parent without respect to orientation.

A Bureau of Parental Fitness and Permissions would be appointed to grant permits, based on their parenting skills, financial status and sanity, for everyone contemplating adoption or having sex.

Typical. It would be so much more efficient to combine the rigorous screening process with the marriage licence bureaus. The only problem is that the fees would have to go up, and that might discourage poor people and the young from getting married.

This is what happens when voters, their elected representatives and government employees try to control a force of nature. Maybe they should pay more attention to what little they can control at home and stop looking to try and control everyone else.

It won't pass. Who would vote for it? The people who proposed it would probably vote against it, if a general vote even occurred.

It doesn't take a libertarian to see how ridiculous the ramifications of it actually are.

This seems like an effective publicity stunt that will raise awareness.

I admire thier ingenuity.

Marriage is a religious construct, therefore it should not be licensed, regulated, criminalized, legalized, overtly prevented, or controlled by the government. "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof." The gay and lesbian community simply need to find a religion that will marry them and they cannot be stopped. (I think Unitarians will hold wedding services for gay couples.) And, none of the rest of us should be required to have a marriage license, nor should we receive or be denied any benefits by being married.

Actually, marriage is not a religious construct, any more than a festival of decorated evergreen trees at the end of December is a Christian construct. In both cases, religious institutions co-opted existing non-religious ceremonies and symbols (each already hundreds or thousands of years old) into their own religious framework.

For anyone who has been tricked by religious zealots into thinking marriage is a religious construct instead of a civil one, I strongly suggest reading the book "Same-Sex Unions in Premodern Europe" by John Boswell. The book briefly touches on the fact that human beings all over the planet have had ceremonies to celebrate the union of two (or more) people since thousands of years before any religion ever claimed marriage as a "sacrament."

"Marriage is a religious construct, therefore it should not be licensed, regulated, criminalized, legalized, overtly prevented, or controlled by the government."

Think about what you're saying Nick.

Unlike individual rights, marriage involves 2 (or more) people. As is such, disbutes will inevitably arise between those individuals. Who settles those disputes? Government does, in a court of law. How does it settle those disputes? In accordance with the laws passed by the people.

I doubt many people on this website will admit it, but government has the legitimate power (and in my opinion an obligation) to legislate morality on "collective rights", where the "right" involves multiple people.

Granted, the people can get caught up in a zeal sometimes, and I imagine the judiciary will continue to strike down irrational laws favored by the right that do more harm then good (Gay-marriage) while refusing to do anything about the irrational laws favored by the left that also do more harm then good (pre-marriage STD testing, to "improve people's health by controlling STD's") but not giving government this power in principle would probably result in marriage partners "disappearing" whenever it would normally just lead to a divorce.

Can you imagine people having kids for the sole reason of getting married whether they can afford to or not? Talk about expanding welfare.
There are many people who shouldn't have had kids if they couldn't afford them. My wife and I stopped at two kids because we could afford to. If we won the lottery we would have one more kid then call it quits.

There is also a difference between a civil union and a religous marriage. the church wedding is more of a voluntary celebration of the civil union that was finalized in city hall when you pick up your marriage license. Right?

Much hinges on how government *chooses* to define it. If it's merely a contract stating a commitment of mutual support, any 2 or more people should be able to do it.
If it's a religious matter, government shouldn't be involved in it *at all*.
If it's specifically between men and women, there must be a stated reason why others are prohibited. The obvious answer is to create a supportive environment for procreation and child raising. If so, it is only just for the man and woman involved to be required to file an intent to have children, and be required to follow through on that intent in order stay "married". Otherwise they are in breach of contract.
Either it's the same as any other contract between individuals or it's not. They can't have it both ways.

I believe that the government should allow any type of contract between any number of consenting adults. Anthony is correct when he says that the church marriage is a religious celebration of the civil union entered into. (At least that's the way it should be.)
Of course no church should be forced to conduct ceremonies for unions it disagrees with (people should have the right to be racist, sexist, homophobes, etc.).
As long as nobody is being forced, coerced or is underage (as in many of the polygamist marriages in parts of Utah currently) the government should have no part of it.
TomSwift is right when he points out that some form of recognition is needed for when a person or persons wishes to leave the contract. It will need to be settled in a court of law. Therefore there has to be some guide for the court to follow.
Therefore a "marriage" or "civil union" contract should be filed somewhere.

The union of two people was what was happening for hundreds of thousands of years, Rob, not marriage. The union or grouping of a couple was not defined as anything but just that, a pairing or group recognized by the community or not, until religion decided it was "God's will" or whatever you want to call it. Mostly was defined because religious leaders wanted teenage girls to have sexual restrictions placed on them so they would be "pure." Marriage did that. Claim God is involved and you control people that way. Religion was government back then. Now the government is separate but they still control what they have no business controlling. They grant a license, decide who can and cannot form a contract, and tax differently because of the licensed label. If the government did not grant or deny benefits to married couples we would not be having this discussion.

Why should the government be involved in this decision one way or the other? Any way you slice it they have no role.

Everything involves two or more people, Tom. You can't buy groceries from yourself. Getting the government involved in decisions made by consenting adults is asking for trouble. Most of our laws are the prohibition of something rather than the protection of rights. The government even requires forms to be filed when someone wants to end their marriage, even if they do so amicably. But if their union were not defined or recognized by the government, no forms must be filed.

Besides the numerous reasons gays should not be restricted, why are the rest of us required to pay the government or have their consent to BE married. I asked my wife to marry me, she said yes. The minister was willing to perform the service. The government made me go to the court house 3 days before the ceremony and pay them for a piece of paper I haven't looked at since. That piece of paper made it easy for my wife to change her name. What people call her shouldn't be managed by anyone but her. The government should simply have no role in any union of willing adults whatsoever. Polygamy should be legal, too, whether you like it or not, whether you care to participate or not, whether you are too embarrassed to teach your kids that people are different or not. We were all kids once. Did it scar us to learn that some people like other people that are the same gender as them. This is just dumb.

What about when (heaven forbid) you and your wife get divorced? How is your property split? Custody of any children?
As great as it would be if people could agree on these things peacefully and amicably it usually doesn't happen. The government will become involved at the end throught the court system. It isn't that bad to have them involved at the beginning.
I said Polygamy should be allowed. I was just adding the caveats of voluntary and of adult age because in many polygamist communities it is a form of child abuse. Girls are FORCED to become wife #X of a much older man at terribly young ages. This is abuse plain and simple and the government is supposed to stop that.

Remember everyone that this measure was not meant to be taken seriously except as a protest. One of the non-religious reasons given by my former party (the republicrats) for denying marriage to gays was because marriage was for the "rearing of children."
The proposers of this are just trying to make the republicrats put their money where their mouth is. Hooray for them!

A) There should be no government involvement in marriage (except, perhaps, in the limited role of defending those who are forced into a marriage against their will, and of course enforcing contracts).

B) Therefore, there also should be no government-derived benefits to marriage, which constitute nothing more than government-enforced discrimination against those who choose not to marry. (A marrage ought to be benefitial in and of itself to the two or more persons involved, and should not rely on handouts from the government.)

C) The question of gay marriage should be left up to individual religious sects and churches to decide, thus allowing for true marriage equality.

Considering this, despite understanding that it is "a political statement that the current system maintains double standards for straights and gays" and "not designed to pass," I still cannot in any way support this bill. (But then, it's doubtful even the drafters support it.) This bill, if by some quirk of luck does end up passing, will not move us in the right direction, in the direction of government relenquishing it's power over marriage, but rather in the direction of government growing even more comfortable in enacting arbitrary and even discriminative regulation over that which it has no authrity to be involved with in the first place.

I agree with almost everyone on this site that government is too intrusive in our lives. Now to allow government, or a religious organization to change the definitions of words is much too intrusive. I am quoting Websters Dictionary Marriage; The legal union of a man and woman as husband and wife.

I do not understand why we need to change that definition. If we allow polygamy, do we allow beastiality? Can morals ever be used for government?

To Rob Powers, I read lots of books. If you read enough history books they will all conflict with each other. Just because you read a book, and that book said something does not make it a fact.

The celebration of Jesus Christs birth is a Christian celebration by definition. If you want to use some ancient Nordic celebration as the start of Christmas you can, but you weren't there and we don't know. Just because some book says so does not make it so. You truly are allowed to think for yourself, you are not bound to have to believe everything you read.

golferhal:

The difference between polyamory and bestiality. Polyamory is a contract between several voluntary parties. A beast cannot consent nor contract so bestiality cannot be a legally recognized union.

Also, Jesus was born on April 17th, 6 B.C.E. Christmas is a date arbitrarily chosen by an ancient pope to use as Christmas, since it was being used as the celebration of the pagan god Mithras. It is also very close to the winter solstice, thus the reason people refer to yuletide cheer and other yule references, since the pagan holiday of yule is on December 21st.

Many relationships between people are contracts even if they are unwritten. Purchases at any store are effectively contracts to receive a product for money. You don't get the government involved until A) there is something wrong with the product you purchased AND B) you cannot solve the disagreement with the other party without government involved. Most stores accept returns without ever involving any other entity.

I have no problem with getting the courts involved when there is a dispute that cannot be solved amicably but one shouldn't need to be married through the government to argue a dispute. Men and women, men and men, women and women all have relationships outside of marriage of every kind that involve the sharing of "stuff" or raising of children. Having a license to be in a relationship is to have your relationship regulated. It gives the government the authority over your relationship and they have no right to that.

I am not in favor of government approval of gay marriage because I am not in favor of government approval of ANY marriage. I love the bill though just becasue it makes the opponents squirm. It won't pass, but it might make them think for a change.

Under the *Absolute Minarchy* model of libertarianism, marriage is indeed something that needs to be registered with the state. (Please note this is NOT the same as saying the state can regulate it. This is on the order of contract recordation). There is a very simple reason for this; filial ties affect property rights. This is a simple statement that is inherently obvious that it seems no one in this conversation wants to recognize.

Marriage licensing, the practice objected to, began initially as a mechanism to prevent interracial couples. It was initiated -- surprise, surprise -- by the conservative South.

Now, we face once again the application of marriage licenses to prevent a distinct, sizeable, and generally peaceful segment of the population from carrying out their lives as they see fit.

We can argue in circles about what government should be regulating or what it shouldn't, but in the meanwhile we continue to have a group of third-class citizens in this nation. This is intolerable, and anyone who argues that "gays are seeking favorable treatment" when it comes to things like civil unions or domestic partnerships, is either a bigot, a fool, or a non-libertarian. Period. I for one can see no exceptions. Frankly, I cannot classify bigots as libertarians either; the two are mutually exclusive in my eyes.

This same logic applies to polygamy/polyandry/polyamory as well.

The problem, of course, with opposing government approval of gay marriage based on one's opposition to government approval of any marriage, is that it ignores reality.

Government already links several rights and privileges to marriage, so denying the institution to gays means denying those rights and privileges to gays. And we're not just talking about handouts like social security -- things that most libertarians would oppose. We're talking about things that even the tiniest libertarian-utopia federal government would still have, such as the right to marry someone from another country and bring them home with you to the U.S., or the right to not testify against one's own spouse in court. There are also serious tax consequences for non-married couples, between inheritance taxes and re-assessment of property taxes when one person dies. Often, the survivor must sell their home in order to pay the taxes. Surely, that's not a situation preferable to libertarians.

This goes back to the same argument Outright Libertarians made at the Portland convention: If the Libertarian Party had been around in the 1940s and 1950s, would it have opposed allowing black children into the government schools, because that would expand the size of government education? Of course not! Libertarians recognize that, while we oppose government programs, such programs when they already exist must necessarily be prohibited from discriminating against minority groups.

Legalizing same-sex marriage is the practical libertarian solution to a pressing real-world problem. Denying same-sex marriage until government gets out of the marriage business (anyone think that will happen in our lifetimes?) is about as far-fetched as the Washington proposal that this blog post is all about.

Mark, did you act as mid-wife, or are you Joseph re-incarnated? Please remember, intelligence is the ability to acqquire and USE knowledge.

Actually you are wrong, Jesus was born on September 25th 4BC. See I can show my ignorance just as good as you can.

My Grandfather never had a birth certificate so he had no idea when he was born. (orphaned and into foster care before the age of one). We celebrated his birthday on July 4th. Who cares when your birthday is, just have fun when you celebrate.

golferhal -- actually, there is strong anecdotal evidence indicating that Jesus was born in April, and it is even present in the Bible. Why were Joseph and Mary where they were, again? (Hint; it's something L(l)ibertarians oppose, sometimes vehemently, sometimes intellectually, but generally across the board!)

There is very heavy evidence for the date I gave. Anecdotal and scientific. It is very notable that a number of Christian sects to this day refuse to celebrate Christmas.

Rob, of course you are right, I was just making a point of opposition to their involvement. If the government is going to be involved regardless of their justification they absolutely must be fair. In the absence of libertarian ideals in government, meaning the limitation of government, gays should be allowed to marry and be so licensed. They should not have to take the hypocritical position that although their licensure is required they oppose the need for it. That should be our job as libertarians.

There is no SCIENCE regarding Jesus. There is NO written account of him from the time he was purported to exist. ALL written accounts occurred 30-200 after his alleged death. Interesting that the Romans were articulate bookkeepers at that time and a great volume of records still exist. You would think a movement of so many thousands of people would have warranted notice, but nothing survives today.

Okay, convinced of the need to separate church and state? Good then.

BOTTOM LINE #1:
The proposal is absurd. Nobody wants it to pass, not even the authors. Why play with fire?

BOTTOM LINE #2:
Marriage should be free to all people that choose to participate.

Everybody should lighten up a bit.
This is a protest measure and a clever political play. Since our country at least gives lip service to the separation of church and state (which is not what it says in the constitution, by the way) opponents of gay marriage had to come up with at least one non-religious reason to ban it. The reason they came up with was that marriage was for the production and rearing of children.
Now this measure is telling those politicians that they either have to vote for this measure or be exposed as the hypocritical bigots they are. What is wrong with that?
To win a fight you have to use dirty tactics. We can all wish that we lived in a Pollyanna world where you could win political victories by just making good logical arguments but it's not the world we live in.

The funny part about all of this is that the "Marriage is for procreation" schtick doesn't forbid lesbian marriages. At least, not anymore;

There are possible in-vitro fertilization techniques that make it possible to fertilize one egg with the genetic material gathered from another egg, without a single spermatozoa. This, for the record, is a variation on "cloning".

There are economic benefits to being married. Tying those benefits to biology is inappropriate.

That is why marriage should be free to ALL people that choose to participate.

Amen

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion,

It doesn't say "separation of church and state" in exact words but that is what it means when Congress (the state) shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion (church, synagogue, mosque, Flying Spaghetti Monster pirate ship, etc).

or prohibiting the free exercise thereof;

If a gay couple can site a religion that will marry them the federal government cannot prohibit that. I am uncertain how individual states are prevented from prohibiting an establishment of religion, unless their state constitutions conform to the U.S. Constitution or have their own separation of church and state. It only says Congress shall make no law, but does not refer to the several states making their own.

Everything you just said is 100 percent correct.
In fact some states such as Maryland (which was founded as a colony by Catholics who wanted to escape persecution in Protestant England) had an official state religion in the early days of the republic. This was in the days when only property owners were allowed to vote in most states.
Like the property owner provision most of the official state religions fell by the wayside during the early 1800's. Individual states decided to follow the federal government's lead.
Separation of church and state is derived from the reading of some of Thomas Jefferson's private correspondence. Since the supreme court has trouble reading the constitution as written they have adopted that interpretation. Which of course means that individual state actions dealing with religion are declared unconstitutional by this kangaroo court. Though I prefer that states stay out of the business of religion, it is not unconstitutional. The states with official religions changed on their own accord. No federal interference was needed.
While I will vote to keep my state out of religion, it is not a Michigander's business if Maryland doesn't. The feds are enforcing a law that doesn't exist.
Let each state make up its mind. It is my belief that states with separation will fare better and people will move away from ones that don't. It's called voting with your feet, Capitalism and the free market. They don't just work in economics.

Maybe this'll keep those Environmentalist crazies who talk about population bombs and call themselves childfree from getting married. I wonder what Darwin was talking about when he talked about survival of the fittest. I guess anti-Industrialists like the Environmentalists can extinct themselves and we'll all be the better for it. At least then, millions of children in Africa won't die because DDT has been banned for no good reason.

The government should not force married people to have kids. However, I'm not certain that marriage should be granted to gays. Didn't somebody invent a "Civil Union" to fix that problem?

Who knows what to do with marriage, but its a much more minor issue than the Evangelicals make it out to be. Its one of those "who cares" issues, which also includes abortion.

The real issues are government waste, decay of civil liberties, and elimination of immoral taxes (falsely called Progressive Taxes by their supporters, they include the Death Tax, IRS Tax, and others that tax at unequal rates).

John B. I disagree with you a LITTLE bit. I think the 14th amendment imposes the freedoms guaranteed by the Amendments to all states. Therefore state congresses CANNOT pass laws regarding religion.

You're spot on about Thomas Jefferson (my favorite Libertarian). It was in an address to the Virginia Baptists in 1808 that he first used the term "wall of separation between church and state." The phrase does not appear in any official government documents, but does accurately reflect the intent of the Framers.

I've had several articles published on this very topic. Here is a fairly short one:
http://hyper2.com/essays/churchandstate.html

Brad -- intellectualist moment: Your comments about Darwin vis a vie Environmentalism are neither effective, appropriate, nor accurate.

On a genetic level certainly such behavior is nonviable for longevity. On a **memetic** level, however, "Environmentalism" is a thriving, virulent characteristic.

I am a layman environmentalist. I have deep concerns regarding the state of human industry and its impact on the ecosystem. However, I am also a deep rejector of the IPCC's supposed consensus; that is -- there is no evidence yet produced that indicates global warming is anthropogenic. Period.

I see no need for forced measures to resolve the impact of industry on the planet; simple market incentives such as "public relations" and "civil liability" already sufficiently cover that area. It remains necessary merely for diligence on the part of individuals such as myself.

Global warming is a bit of a misnomer.

Global climate destabilization is a better term. This includes more extreme cold events, as well as stronger storms, not just warming.

The climate is very complicated and there are a lot of feedback loops which cause one factor to overcompensate for another.

By rapidly changing the mix of gases which make up composition of the atmosphere, changing ocean and atmospheric currents can cause all sorts of chain reactions which can be catastrophic, gradual or even beneficial.

One proposed solution to this has been increased government regulation, or even a planned economy designed to reduce human impact on the environment.

The problem with that is the calculation problem in planned or partially planned economies, and the practical result is that planned economies are an unmitigated environmental disaster of tremendous proportions.

We can see that in the US, with the government - particularly the military - being by far the worst polluter.

Much as with the environment, left-brained attempts to plan the economy have unintended (if we want to avoid grand conspiracy theories) consequences which far outweigh their stated good intentions.

In fact the two are closely related, as can be seen by the terms: ECOnomy and ECOlogy.

As Roderick Long Explains:

"I suspect I’m one of the few political bloggers who has no opinion about global warming. My problem is that I know too many intelligent and sincere people, with way more scientific expertise than mine, on both sides of the issue. Many on the left seem to assume that anyone who’s skeptical about the cause and/or extent of global warming must be in the pay of the corporations; and many on the right seem to assume that anyone who thinks global warming is serious and manmade is just a shill for big government. I know from personal experience that both of those assumptions are just plain false.

But I suspect the stereotypes – both stereotypes – are largely true of all too many of the politicians and lobbyists involved in the debate. As I’ve written elsewhere:

We might compare the alliance between government and big business to the alliance between church and state in the Middle Ages. Of course it’s in the interest of both parties to maintain the alliance – but all the same, each side would like to be the dominant partner, so it’s no surprise that the history of such alliances will often look like a history of conflict and antipathy, as each side struggles to get the upper hand. But this struggle must be read against a common background framework of cooperation to maintain the system of control.

Now the main difference, insofar as there is one, between the Establishment Left and the Establishment Right in this country is that while both are the running-dog lackeys of the neofascist government-business alliance, the Establishment Left somewhat favours a shift in power toward government, while the Establishment Right somewhat favours a shift in power toward business. Playing up the threat of global warming thus serves the interests of the statocratic faction, while playing down that threat serves the interests of the plutocratic faction – and so you’d expect to see the two sides taking the sides they’re taking, regardless of what the truth actually is. But it’s just a squabble within the ruling class.

In fact, of course, if global warming does turn out to be serious and manmade, that shouldn’t lead us to grant more power to the state; the more serious the problem, the more disastrous any centralised, bureaucratic solution is likely to be. And if on the other hand global warming turns out to have been overhyped, that shouldn’t lead us into complacency about the plutocracy either. Both halves of the ruling-class machine need to be dismantled, whatever the weather may bring.

I talked about people who take the sides they do primarily on the basis of scientific evidence, and about people who take the sides they do primarily on the basis of political calculation. But I don’t think either of those groups is the majority. Most people with positions on global warming don’t have sufficient scientific expertise to belong to the first group, and aren’t dishonest enough to belong to the second group.

I suspect most people take whatever position they take on global warming because people are generally more likely to read, and/or to believe, whichever scientific case best fits in with their worldview. If you’re conventionally left-wing, then you’re probably accustomed to thinking of business interests as selfish and irresponsible forces that need to be reined in by public-spirited civil servants, and so you’re going to view claims that seem to support the business community with heightened suspicion. If, on the other hand, you’re conventionally right-wing, then you’re probably accustomed to thinking of business interests as decent hard-working folks who are constantly being demonized and micromanaged by rapacious regulators, and so you’re going to view claims that seem to support government regulation with heightened suspicion.

Even if these respective value-judgments were correct, one should be cautious about allowing them to influence one’s view of the evidence. But I don’t think they’re even correct; one should avoid putting too much faith in either the bosses or the bureaucrats."

Limited liability and corporate personhood are a big part of the problem here.

Since corporations are prevented from being held responsible for the costs and risks they externalize, by regime fiat, their profit/cost/risk calculation is skewed severely.

This is then “remedied” by government regulation, which only makes things worse; the combined burden of taxes and regulations make it a lot harder to become an entrepreneur and easier to remain a corporate or government employee. Big businesses are far more easily able to comply with the tax/regulatory burden than small businesses, or even - through undue influence over legislators, lobbyists and regulators - be de facto exempt, largely or entirely.

Hi I'm new to the posting. Wanted to comment on the issue of the marriage in the previous posts. I live in Phoenix, AZ and I've got to say that it's out of hand here on that topic. It's already "illegal" for same sex couples to marry and the conservatives here wanted to amend our states constitution to where it reads that there is to be no gay marriages. It cannot (but I'm not opposed to it) be done in the first place. It already reads and defines marriage as being between one man and one woman.(HELLO!!) What are these people afraid of?? They're not thinking out here.

Paulie, Michigan is arguing that point right now. We have Pfizer (about to close up shop) and a host of other drug companies (we make more than cars, you know). The last week the local papers have been replete with stories of people permanently harmed by Vioxxin (sp?) et al. There is public outcry that manufacturers are not held responsible when a drug goes wrong. The current system places the onus on the FDA to approve the public safety of drugs - except that there is no redress to the FDA.

It would be better if ALL regulation were removed. There could be a central repository of information, perhaps hosted on the AMA.ORG web site, where doctors and patients could LOOK IT UP (the research data) and decide for themselves if they want to take the "risk" of using drug A or drug B.

Robert, welcome.
I am concerned that homophobia touches your corner of the world also. You'll find we ALL agree with you on that issue. We can't figure out what these personal-value-imposing zealots are afraid of.

I recently had an essay published in my local paper on that very subject. I always like to include a few quotes to back up my positions. The Framers are eminently quotable as, compared to today's politicians, they were ALL Libertarians. Check out my article and feel free to borrow some words if you like.

http://hyper2.com/essays/gaymarriage.html

Most of all DO SOMETHING. Hang a flyer on the cork board at the grocery story, call into some talk-radio shows, write letters to local newspaper editors. Claim you're gay, invent a religion, have an "ordained minister" marry you and your drinking buddy then sue the state because they passed laws oppressing your religion. Whatever you pick, just do it.

Michigan not only did away with gay marriage, we ("they" actually) just passed LAW that no public institution may offer benefits to same sex partners. We have a Democrat governer pushing universal health care, but chopping off segments of the population during the same campaign. Hello left hand - hello right hand!

"An equal application of law to every condition of man is fundamental."
-- Thomas Jefferson, to George Hay, 1807. ME 11:341

"Why is it that, as a culture, we are more comfortable seeing two men holding guns than holding hands?"
-- Ernest Gaines

"What are you trying to protect heterosexual marriages from? There isn't a limited amount of love in Iowa. It isn't a non-renewable resource. If Amy and Barbara or Mike and Steve love each other, it doesn't mean that John and Mary can't."
-- Ed Fallon

"You could move."
-- Abigail Van Buren, "Dear Abby," in response to a reader who complained that a gay couple was moving in across the street and wanted to know what he could do to improve the quality of the neighborhood.

"If God had wanted me otherwise, He would have created me otherwise."
-- Johann von Goethe