Who's right on Gay Marriage?

Say the words gay marriage and everybody has an opinion. Liberals and dippers see it is a human rights issue and conservatives model it as democratic problem. But in truth both are wrong as gay marriage, as usual, has been miscategorized by both sides of the political elite.

Liberals claim that the gay marriage is a question of human rights-- that denying gay people access to a sanctioned marriage is in effect denying them their rights to exist as free entities. This is wrong. For being gay to be synonymous with a lack of fundamental rights then there would have to be examples of state coercion against their basic freedoms of which there is not . Gay people are free to associate with, how and who they want and they state is powerless to say otherwise. Gay people are free to live and work and learn where they want without interference. Gay people are free from being censored in this country. They are free to speak, publish, debate and express what they want in this country. Granting marriage to the gay community is not an issue of the limitation of the basic fundamental rights of homosexuals is any way.

Conservatives on the other hand see gay marriage as a democratic issue which is equally naïve. They believe that there should be debate and then a vote held-- whether the vote is held in the House of Commons or it is a national referendum is unimportant. More importantly though just as the individual’s right to his basic freedoms-- association, movement and expression-- should never be limited by the arbitrary whims of government neither should they be limited by the arbitrary whims of the majority. For example if vegetarians constituted the majority-- something which may happen someday-- should they have the right to make meat consumption illegal? Should an underachieving majority have the right confiscate the earned wealth of their most virtuous producers-- see socialism. No to both of these things. The doctrine of individual rights declares that man should be equally free from the arbitrary coercion of government and the public alike.

Now the Liberals are close when they recognize gay marriage as a rights issue, but wrong when they think it is a gay right’s issue. Traditionally marriage is a privilege that is bestowed by the church and the church has the right to grant or deny that privilege to whomever they want. Complicating the issue is the state‘s involvement in a religious or social issue. But the state is only acknowledging the religious foundation not determining it. When they state seeks to alter the definition they are in fact violating the church’s fundamental right to be free and self determining. The state has no legal right to the definition of marriage and any attempt to control or coerce the definition from the church is statist and immoral. Gay marriage is in fact a human right’s issue for the religious community.

The government should recognize gay unions on equal status as married couple (personally I believe there should be no state sponsored advantage to either, but since there is it should equal). Gay communities should be free to call the union whatever they want and essentially marriage would be open to them if the church granted them the right to use the term “marriage” but until that time there should be no such thing as gay marriage.

As a child that my father always told me that if you see a large crowd of people moving one way then it is probably best to start moving in the other direction.