As celebrations and pure joy erupt across much of the country in the wake of the recent SCOTUS marriage equality ruling, I am somewhat sobered by some very troubling developments. The Supreme Court ruled last week that bans on same sex marriage are unconstitutional effectively legalizing same-sex marriages in all 50 states of the USA. If nothing else, this decision is a signal of how far the US and the world have come since the Stonewall riots and the birth of the modern Gay Rights Movement nearly 46 years ago. With that said, this court case has brought to light some extremely disconcerting conceptions or misconceptions apparently held by many Americans.
Gay rights do not exist. The commonly used axiom of some particular group’s “rights” which has become so prevalent in our society only serves to cloud what rights actually are. Every human has a right of ownership to their own body and mind, and so it follows that they must own their faculties and any reward or consequence resulting from the use of those faculties. Though perhaps just a superficial use of nomenclature for simplicity’s sake, dividing people into these types of groups and asserting that this group has or deserves certain rights inevitably leads to the creation of rights that are not rights at all such as a poor man’s “right” to healthcare, or a gay couple’s “right” to have a wedding cake made by an unwilling store. This misconception is further expounded by the fact that many (if not most) of the supporters of gay couples’ right to marry would be the first to cry out in disgust and disapproval of the different Religious Freedom Restoration Acts. This is a logical inconsistency. What they fail to see is that both of these laws do exactly the same thing—that is remove government from aspects of our lives.
The recent SCOTUS ruling is remarkable because it does what government rarely does, namely remove itself from a given situation. It ruled, not that gay couples can or should get married, but that marriage bans imposed by any level of government are not allowed. Though it was probably not thought of in these terms, marriage bans are immoral because they initiate force against innocent and consenting individuals. Self-owning individuals should be free to enter into any agreement or contract voluntarily and any third party (even governments) which steps in and blocks this process is an aggressor and its actions are tantamount to force. It is also an initiation of force if a third party forces a store or restaurant to serve people whom they don’t want to serve. Just as gay marriage bans use force to prevent consenting adults from entering into a marriage contract, civil rights acts use force to dictate what business owners do with their private property. This marriage equality ruling and the different Religious Freedom Restoration Acts, then, are both negative in the sense that they do not force action on anyone, they simply codify what is already universally true—that what an adult does with their bodies, property, and minds is their business alone as long as they are not aggressing against another individual. And if this ruling is used as a springboard to force different churches or organizations (through threatening of removal of tax exemption status or some other method) into marrying gays when they do not wish to, then that would be as much an aggression as a marriage ban. The key is to stop using the force and power of the state to enforce our beliefs on others no matter how correct we feel.
The Constitution and federalism only are important insofar as they protect human rights. Critics of this ruling and all of the dissenting Supreme Court Justices have pointed to the fact that five people decided this issue which the Constitution does not mention, and which should therefore be left to the States. This misconception, one held by most statist libertarians, is that the Constitution and federalism matter as ends in themselves, and are somehow sacrosanct. But holding these concepts as independently important is a dangerous line of thought. The Constitution can neither give rights nor protect them, and it is useful only as a tool which can sometimes be wielded by those who wish to protect rights. The same goes for federalism—it is only something to be protected in situations where it limits the government and slows it down on its quest for domination. If the Constitution or mechanisms of federalism act contrary to the protection of human rights, or if human rights are better protected by ignoring or violating these institutions, then they should be violated and ignored. In this case, five people were able to use their power and influence to stop a type of violent coercion and so their actions are necessarily a good thing and morally justifiable.
An individual State and the voters of that State have no right to say that two consenting adults cannot voluntarily enter into marriage contract. If a majority votes to murder the minority it is still murder, and if a majority votes to forcibly prevent individuals from entering into an agreement, that is still coercion. And it does not matter what mechanism was used to put a stop to that coercion, even if it violates the tenets of American federalism or the American Constitution. It does not matter if five judges over turn democratically-decided laws, because the laws are immoral. An individual who is aggressed against has the right to use any method to defend themselves and to stop the aggression. Protecting over glorified concepts such as constitutionalism and federalism, or constantly referring to things as “violating” these tenets can cloud the issue of what is actually being violated and can limit our ability to rectify problems. Case and point this Supreme Court ruling. Maybe it is not in line with the American Constitution to have five men decide on what is seen as such a large issue. But it doesn’t matter if this decision violates the Constitution, or if the Court was acting outside its proper realm and dictating policy, what matters is that marriage bans forcibly prevent consenting adults from entering into a legal contract with one another, and now those bans are gone. If there are two adults who wish to get married, and someone willing to marry them, then anyone who stands in their way is an aggressor and initiator of force. By thinking too much about constitutions we may lose sight of this and only judge things as morally acceptable or not solely based on whether we believe the Constitution permits it or not. This is dangerous. Morality is objective and universal, and the Constitution is only good insofar as it is in line with morality, i.e. in line with property rights.
Now we come to perhaps the most disheartening development, conception, etc. revealed by this SCOTUS ruling. The idea that government determines what is right and what is wrong and the fact that many look to government for confirmation of their beliefs. One can easily tell this by the extreme outpouring of joy and ecstasy from this ruling on the one hand, and the depressed feeling that the world has gone to complete hell on the other. People who do not agree with gay marriage are feeling as though their world is coming crashing down, and people who do agree are seeing this ruling as the beginning of some profoundly different and better world. Now I would agree to a point that the fact that the Supreme Court did rule in what appears to be a “pro-gay” way (really it is just a “pro-morality” way) is a sign that at least a significant part of society has left behind their draconian fear and hate of homosexuals, and this alone is something to be happy about. But at the end of the day what did this ruling really do? Though bans on anything, marriage included, are immoral and should be removed, the ability to now legally marry has only practical benefits. Gays can now get tax benefits, be legally entitled to their spouse’s wealth, and can possibly adopt children easier. And maybe these things are worth celebrating. But what I feel people are actually celebrating and happy about is that now, after this ruling, they feel accepted and that their lifestyle is legitimated.
If people viewed this ruling through the correct lens, as removing an immoral ban on a type of voluntary interaction, then they have every right to be exuberant. But people are not looking at it this way. It seems to me that most, critics and proponents alike, are looking at this as endorsing some type of activity, either for worse or for better depending on one’s point of view. But since when have we become so weak that we need government endorsement for what we feel is right, or lament so much when we feel it endorses a point of view opposite our own? Practical tax benefits aside (unless that is truly why you are so excited), why do you need government to tell you that you are able to get married? Is that not a most sacred bond between you and the person you love most in this world? Why do we need reassurance from outside, third party entities? This, alas, I do not have an answer to. I can only say that it seems as though many people rely on government for more and more these days, from providing healthcare, to determining what is acceptable in our society. And this is scary. The statists have all but triumphed over the individual if we look to them to determine or even endorse what is correct and righteous.
This ruling is a positive step for human rights because it has removed a piece of power from government and returned it to the individual. This is right regardless of whether the process was constitutional and regardless of whether it occurred the way things ought to within the US government. This is a triumph of the individual against the state but if you look at this ruling as endorsing homosexuality and that fills you with extremely strong emotions in one direction or the other, then I want you to ask yourself how this really affects your life (i.e. how are the practical realities of your life different now than they were before the ruling) and I want you to ask yourself why you need the approval of a mystical board of nine people, or of the whole government for that matter, to feel good about what you feel is right or wrong. Our societal Stockholm syndrome has progressed so far that we crave government acceptance of what we do or feel, and have grown all but inept at finding solutions to our problems outside of government channels. We have the power to change the world for the better, to work together to accomplish our goals, and we do not need a coercive, violent gang of thugs hiding behind black robes to dictate what is right and acceptable.