The Las Cruces Sun News carries a report from Associated Press on the formation of the New Mexico Unites for Marriage Campaign, to protect the legality of non-discriminatory marriage in New Mexico.
Former Gov. Gary Johnson, Democratic U.S. Rep. Michelle Lujan Grisham, the American Civil Liberties Union and others are launching a new campaign Thursday to protect gay marriage in New Mexico.
Backers say the NM Unites for Marriage Campaign is being formed to build support for the freedom to marry. If necessary, it will also work to defend against any legislative attempts to deny or strip away that freedom.
AP reports that eight counties in New Mexico have begun to issue marriage licenses to same sex couples.
New Mexico Unites for Marriage has a facebook page @ https://www.facebook.com/nmunites
Marriage is a contract. One of government’s roles is to enforce contracts. Therefore, the contract must be enforced no matter who it is between.
I agree that government should not be in the business of licensing marriages at all, but I am not freer by keeping the status quo than I am making marriage as equal as possible.
This is a winning issue for Libertarian candidates. Young voters will NOT vote for candidates who are anti-gay marriage, no matter what their other positions. Myself included. DON’T SCREW THIS UP.
To me the big issues around marriage are about end of marriage distributions of property, the raising of children and end of life decisions such as terminating life support, hospital visitation and paying inheritance taxes (which shouldn’t be taxed at all but is and is unfairly taxed for multiple reasons).
These aren’t all necessarily government created problems and under the concept what is the rule of law when a contract isn’t in place, these often become issues of dispute.
I think it is quite simple to do both make both of those points at the same time. Statements in favor of “marriage equality” just need to start with “Government has no place in the marriage business at all. Getting them out of it would truly make for non-discriminatory marriage. But, in the meantime……”
This is yet another government-created problem and the simplest solution is to take the government out of it. There is also a very real, ongoing battle against tyranny and victory for us is just as far off as marriage equality. Utopian prescriptions? You mean like the Declaration of Independence?
Who the state says can and can’t get married will become more and more irrelevant in both of two possible outcomes: 1. The State takes away all our rights 2. We abolish the State
While government is still involved in marriage it should not be allowed to discriminate by sexual preference any more than it should be allowed to discriminate by race. Avoiding this very real, ongoing battle in favor of utopian prescriptions which are at best a long ways off alienates people who live in the real world and are dealing with real problems caused by this discrimination, as well as needlessly creating the mistaken impression that we are on the side of the bigots.
Libertarians should be saying that state should not attempt to define marriage or require a license to marry, period.
Otherwise we needlessly enter a debate that isn’t ours and alienate anyone who objects to the state recognizing same-sex marriages, polygamy, etc.