The Economist's Cookbook

So it's 90 something degrees here at home and I'm drinking English Breakfast Tea. I must be losing my mind...

Despite my agreement with my parents on many things political in nature (I think my libertarian views are rubbing off on a pair of republicans that have gotten very disillusioned with the party), I still seem to have these occasional knock-down, drag-out arguments. Mostly with my mom, whose answer to almost every question is "Because it's the right thing to do." or "You just don't want to hear about morals and God."

This lack of intellectual engagement with my mom probably explains part of the reasons for quite a good deal of tension in our relationship.

But back to the subject at hand. This time it was about the "gay marriage" debate. Now I'm not gay, don't plan to go bat for the other team, and don't like a lot of the politics of the "gay movement" in modern American politics.

However, What two people do behind closed doors is their own damn business. I dare any Christian to go to the US constitution/Declaration of Independence/Federalist Papers and find where government is granted to power to decide who people are allowed to have sex with or fall in love with. You may think it's morally wrong, but is there constitutional support for invading people's lives like this? I should say not.

Now I may not like the lifestyle and may find parts of it amusingly hysterical, but really, where is the line? Are you going to continue to abuse the "General Welfare" clause to the point where it doesn't mean a damn thing? (Hint: We've already done that in this country.) Where does the line get drawn? The Government already wants to tell people what to eat, what to drink, what to put in our bodies. [See the Foie Gras ban in Chicago| See Laws governing the sale of Alcohol | See the oh so successful 'War on Drugs']

Now the US government wants to tell people who they will recognize as a legitimate partner. The funny thing is that this is not old hat for the governments of the states. Many states have unenforced laws against sodomy and I think that Virginia even has one on the books banning oral sex (good luck enforcing that one).

So I ask this of people. "Who gets to decide where the lines are drawn?" and "Whom will these laws be directed against?"

If you honestly believe that the US Government and bureaucrats thereof can do this, you're a fool. They have been impeding on liberty for the purposes of enforcing personal morals or the morals of an interest group, rather than the morals that it was founded to enforce (namely property rights).

Sure, give the Government more power to get into people's bedrooms. Interracial marriage used to be illegal. Is what the Christian Right Wing wants to impose that much different?