Tri-City News, February 10, 2000
Note: Our friends at TriCity cut a sentence or two
from Pat's letter when
they ran it. We thought you'd like to see the full
text.
Dear Editor:
In your last issue, Zebra Kid tried to do an end-run
around the same-gender marriage issue by laying claim to a sort of ultra-radical
position: marriage itself is, in effect, reactionary, and gay
people should live free outside such stifling conformity.
Nice try. Problem is whether you're married
or single, gay or straight, the government takes your money away from you (they call it taxes)
and gives it away in the form of services and programs (after skimming off the
top for itself, with a very heavy hand -- hey, these programs don't run by
magic).
Government, therefore, cannot be allowed to discriminate
in operating its programs or in the provision of services . It has no more right
to condemn same-gender unions as illegal than the ante-bellum South had the right
to forbid interracial marriage, or that Nazi German had to ban the marriage
of Jews and non-Jews.
Marriage, of course, is a private matter.
The government should have no say in it. And as a libertarian I would doubtless oppose any
particular government service or program. But so long as they exist, the
government must recognize same gender marriages and other nontraditional unions
as equal to any traditional heterosexual marriage.
An analogy: Whatever you think about public
(i.e., government) schools,
can the government be allowed to discriminate by running segregated
schools?
But I tremble to think what horrendous, incompetent,
and money-hungry bureaucracy will result. And I can certainly understand why many
gays will avoid in effect registering with the government in such a fashion.
What can I say? The government is indeed the
problem. And even its attempts to fix the problems it causes become problems. But that's
why I'm a libertarian.
Pat Bontempo, Chairman
Monmouth County Libertarian Party
(732) 775-7263