One of the resident libertarians at Fox News, John Stossel, explains his positions on same sex marriage after inviting Brian Brown of the National Organization for Marriage to blather the following positions:
“Marriage is a public good,” he said. “When you redefine marriage, you redefine it for everyone. In states that have redefined marriage, we’ve seen serious consequences, ranging from what is taught in schools -- kids in first grade in Massachusetts are taught that it’s the same thing to grow up and marry a boy or a girl -- to what happens to religious organizations or organizations that just believe marriage is the union of a man and a woman. … You see Catholic Charities' adoption agency essentially being forced out of being able to adopt kids because the state said it is discriminating.”Stossel responds:
Whoa. Those are three separate points. I don’t see a problem with the first: If they redefine marriage to include gays, that doesn’t diminish my marriage. And if kids are taught that gay marriage is OK, so what?
On his third point, if a state tells Catholic Charities they may not honor their beliefs and limit adoptions to straight couples, that’s a problem of Big Government, not gay marriage.I agree with some libertarian positions but it always a matter of degree, and their insistent extremism I can't fathom. Government has a place in our lives. The question I would like to pose to Stossel is in his statement that "Big Government" is responsible for the supposed discrimination against Catholic Charities. My response would be Catholic Charities can be as bigoted as they want, but shouldn't be taking money from the government if they don't want to play by the government's rules.
One other problem with the ideas I hear espoused by most libertarians. They put far too much faith in Americans' ability to respect one another's civil rights. We have failed miserably in the past without our government's intervention, and I'm not ready for Jim Crow to resurface for any American minority in any part of these United States.
