There’s considerable talk about a federal judge’s ruling involving California’s Proposition 8, a proposition that defines marriage under California law. There’s discussion of the ruling, laws and constitutional provisions in other states that are similar to Proposition 8, and the politics of it all.
Like most libertarians, I don’t think these discussions are broad enough — why not get government out of the marriage business? It seems odd, but for thousands of years, government was out of the marriage business, in many parts of the world. David Harsanyi writes along these lines, in a column entitled, “Time For a Divorce”.
Harsanyi explains:
In the 1500s, a pestering theologian instituted something called the Marriage Ordinance in Geneva, which made “state registration and church consecration” a dual requirement of matrimony.
We have yet to get over this mistake. But isn’t it about time we freed marriage from the state?
Imagine if government had no interest in the definition of marriage. Individuals could commit to each other, head to the local priest or rabbi or shaman — or no one at all — and enter into contractual agreements, call their blissful union whatever they felt it should be called and go about the business of their lives.
I certainly don’t believe that gay marriage will trigger societal instability or undermine traditional marriage — we already have that covered — but mostly I believe your private relationships are none of my business. And without any government role in the institution, it wouldn’t be the business of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, either.
As the debate stands now, we have two activist groups trying to force their own ethical construction of marriage on the rest of us. And to enforce it, they have been using the power of the state — one via majority rule and the other using the judiciary (subject to change with the vagaries of public opinion).
Time indeed, to get government out of the business of deciding these things, and by deciding, choosing (and defining) the moral standard for groups that simply don’t have or want a common standard.
The issue of marriage is too important to be a political issue, subject to a group consensus that impinges on individuals’ private consciences. What should, or shouldn’t be, marriage isn’t a decision that one should ever put to plebiscite — one does not make these significant moral judgments and decisions by opinion survey.