California's top court overturns gay marriage ban
By LISA LEFF Associated Press Writer

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) - The California Supreme Court has overturned a gay marriage ban in a ruling that would make the nation's largest state the second one to allow gay and lesbian weddings.

The justices' 4-3 decision Thursday says domestic partnerships are not a good enough substitute for marriage. Chief Justice Ron George wrote the opinion.


The city of San Francisco, two dozen gay and lesbian couples and gay rights groups sued in March 2004 after the court halted San Francisco's monthlong same-sex wedding march.

THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP's earlier story is below.

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) - Both sides in the gay marriage debate will be watching California's highest court Thursday to see if the nation's biggest state goes the way of Massachusetts and legalizes same-sex marriage.

The California Supreme Court was scheduled to rule on a series of lawsuits seeking to overturn a voter-approved law that defines marriage as a union between a man and a woman.

If the court rules in favor of the plaintiffs, California could become the second state after Massachusetts where gay and lesbian residents can marry.

"What happens in California, either way, will have a huge impact around the nation. It will set the tone," said Geoffrey Kors, executive director of the gay rights group Equality California.

Supporters and opponents of gay marriage predicted a number of possible outcomes from the California court's seven justices, six of whom were appointed by Republican governors.

Like the top court in Massachusetts, they could hold that prohibiting same-sex couples from marrying constitutes unlawful discrimination and order state lawmakers to remedy the situation.

Less likely but still feasible, they could bypass the Legislature and simply strike the one man-one woman definition from the marriage statutes, according to Kors. In that instance, the soonest couples could start walking down the aisle would be in 30 days, the time it typically takes for Supreme Court opinions to become final, he said.

A majority of the justices could also join the top courts in four other states that have upheld gay marriage bans.

Such a decision would leave any subsequent changes in the hands of voters or the Legislature, which has twice passed laws to make gay marriage legal. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger vetoed them both times, citing the ban approved by voters in 2000.

"If California issues a decision legalizing same-sex marriage, it will reinvigorate the fight for same-sex marriage" nationally, said Jordan Lorence, an attorney with the conservative Alliance Defense Fund. "But if they affirm that marriage is for a man and a woman, then what has happened is that Massachusetts is leading a one-state parade."

Lorence and Kors agreed that there is another, more nuanced option. The court could strike down the 2000 ban, known as Proposition 22, but give the Legislature the leeway of devising a solution that falls short of allowing marriage for all.

That's what the New Jersey Supreme Court did in 2006. After that court ruled that gay couples should receive the same legal protections as husbands and wives, New Jersey legislators opted to allow same-sex couples to enter into civil unions, designed to give them spousal rights without marriage.

California already offers same-sex couples who register as domestic partners the same legal rights and responsibilities as married spouses, including the right to divorce and to sue for child support. It's therefore unclear what additional relief state lawmakers could offer short of marriage if the court renders the existing ban unconstitutional.

A coalition of religious and social conservative groups is attempting to put a measure on the November ballot that would enshrine California's current laws banning gay marriage in the state constitution.

The Secretary of State is expected to rule by the end of June whether the sponsors gathered enough signature to qualify the marriage amendment, similar to ones enacted in 26 other states.

The cases before the California court were brought by the city of San Francisco, two dozen gay and lesbian couples, Equality California and another gay rights group in March 2004 after the court halted San Francisco's monthlong same-sex wedding march that took place at Mayor Gavin Newsom's direction.

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On the Net:

Decision to be posted at: http://www.courtinfo.ca.gov/courts/supreme

Summary of Lockyer v. City and County of San Francisco San Jose Mercury News
California Supreme Court overturns gay marriage ban Los Angeles Times

• CA Gay Marriage Ruling
  • In 4-3 Ruling, Court Legalizes Gay Marriage in California
  • McCain and Obama Weigh In
  • Gay-Marriage Election-Yr Deja Vu

California Supreme Court Overturns Gay Marriage Ban

• Think Progress: The California Supreme Court has overturned the state’s ban on gay marriage today, “pavi...
• RS National Affairs Daily: The California Supreme Court has just overturned the state’s ban on gay marriage, with a deci...
• TalkLeft: The Politics of Crime: Gay marriage can not be prohibited in California: The California Supreme Court has overturned a b...
• Feminist Law Professors: Story reported here and here. Read the opnion here!...

Washington Monthly

Gay Marriage Upheld In California

• Lawyers, Guns and Money: California Same-Sex Marriage Ruling...

Gay marriage opponents vow to fight Calif. ruling

California Ruling on Same-Sex Marriage Fuels a Battle, Rather Than Ending It

Coming to grips with same-sex marriage ruling: Liberal and conservative congregations alike discuss whether gays and lesbians will be allowed to wed in their churches, synagogues and temples

The Backlash That Wasn't
Paul Waldman
May 20, 2008 | web only
The conservative reaction to last week's California Supreme Court ruling on same-sex marriage was remarkably subdued. Even John McCain, desperate to pander to the base, had little to say.

Has same-sex marriage lost its potency as a wedge issue?

"A marriage of convenience", The Washington Post, May 21, 2008

Gay marriage ruling put California churches in quandary", Houston Chronicle, May 21, 2008

VIKRAM DAVID AMAR The California Supreme Court's Gay Marriage Opinion: The People of California Have the Power to Undo It By a Ballot Initiative Amending the State Constitution, But How Far Should That Power Extend? FindLaw columnist and U.C., Davis, law professor Vikram Amar explores three interesting issues regarding the recent, headline-making decision by the California Supreme Court holding that the California Constitution requires that straight and gay couples have access to marriage on equal terms. First, Amar considers the strangeness of a legal situation like this one, in which a decision meant to protect a minority that is the frequent target of discrimination can still be overruled by popular vote. Second, Amar explains why, if California voters do reverse the decision, the U.S. Constitution may come into play, with the Due Process Clause possibly determining whether same-sex marriages performed in the interim will remain valid. Third, Amar explains why -- although formally, in our federal system, the California decision has no effect on the Supreme Court's determination of whether there is a federal right to same-sex marriage -- it's possible that the California decision may have an important informal effect on Justices' reasoning.

Catholics Must Bring Wisdom about Marriage to Gay Union Debate, California Bishop Says

Californians narrowly reject gay marriage: Poll

Gay Marriage by Judicial Decree - Stuart Taylor, National Journal

Obama's "New Politics" on Gay Marriage - Rich Lowry, New York Post

Post-Christian America by Patrick J. BuchananTo declare that homosexuals can marry is patently absurd.

California’s Marriage Conundrumby Gary BauerThe significance of this decision and the importance of the next appointed Supreme Court judges.

EDWARD LAZARUS The California Supreme Court's Decision Equalizing Marriage for Gay and Straight Couples: Did the Court Overstep? FindLaw columnist, attorney, and author Edward Lazarus offers an interesting perspective on the recent decision by the California Supreme Court holding that same-sex couples must be granted the right to marry, just as opposite-sex couples are. Lazarus contends that the differences between California's Constitution and the U.S. Constitution undermine any parallels that commentators might be tempted to make between the California decision and U.S. Supreme Court decisions such as Roe v. Wade and Lawrence v. Texas. Thus, even those who would excoriate this decision had it been issued by the U.S. Supreme Court as an interpretation of the U.S. Constitution, must think carefully about whether the same analysis can be applied to the way the California Supreme Court interpreted California's own, and substantially different, Constitution.

JOANNA GROSSMAN AND LINDA MCCLAIN The California Supreme Court Rules in Favor of Marriage for Same-Sex Couples: Why Domestic Partnerships Are Not Enough: Part One in a Two-Part Series of Columns In the first in a two-part series of columns, FindLaw columnist and Hofstra law professor Joanna Grossman and FindLaw guest columnist and Boston University law professor Linda McClain consider a number of interesting issues surrounding the California Supreme Court's recent decision holding that the state constitution requires that California grant same-sex couples an equal right to marry. In particular, Grossman and McClain discuss how the California decision affected the national legal landscape in this area; explain the evolution of California's marriage and domestic partnership laws; and consider the significance of whether same-sex unions are dubbed "marriages" or go by an alternate name such as "domestic partnerships" or "civil unions."
Tuesday, May. 27, 2008

'Gay' marriage ruling to spark lawsuits nationwide: Will spark a flood of lawsuits across the nation by homosexuals demanding recognition in their home cities and states

Victories For Equal Rights
Earlier this month, the California Supreme Court, "striking down two state laws that had limited marriages to unions between a man and a woman," ruled that same-sex couples have a constitutional right to marry. The 4-3 decision makes California the second state, after Massachusetts, to allow same-sex marriage. The AP reported yesterday that "California officials are telling county clerks that they can start issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples on June 17." In another victory for equal rights advocates, New York Governor David Paterson (D) this week "instructed state agencies -- including those governing insurance and health care -- to immediately change policies and regulations to recognize gay marriages." Paterson called it "a strong step toward marriage equality." Once civil marriages are available in California and Massachusetts and recognized in New York, "marriage equality will reach around 60 million Americans," noted gay rights activist Andrew Sullivan. When asked to explain the reasoning behind the decision, California Chief Justice Ronald George, a Republican, said, "I think there are times when doing the right thing means not playing it safe."

CONSERVATIVE REACTION: Conservatives are up in arms in response to the New York and California developments. In California, right-wing groups are attempting to place a constitutional amendment on the ballot in November stating, "only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California." Organizations will reportedly spend between $10 and $15 million on the initiative. "The initiative will be asking voters to do two disruptive things: change the state constitution and retroactively impugn these already-existing marriages," Sullivan said. Other reactions to the California ruling were even more extreme, such as from the far-right Campaign for Children and Families, who compared the county clerks issuing same-sex marriage licenses to Nazis during the Holocaust. The New York Times reports today that "opponents of same-sex unions were pondering a range of legal and legislative challenges" to Paterson's directive, including a potential lawsuit "from citizens groups." New York Senate majority leader Joseph Bruno ® "said he would be consulting with lawyers to study constitutional questions raised by Mr. Paterson's directive, suggesting that legal action was a possibility."

SUPPORT FOR EQUAL RIGHTS: A common right-wing response to the California gay marriage ruling is that the justices defied public opinion in ruling in favor of same-sex marriage. "It's outrageous that the court has overturned not only the historic definition of marriage, but the clear will of the people of California," said Family Research Council's Tony Perkins, for example. Several prominent conservatives also launched similar attacks. Rep. Roy Blunt (R-MO), former Massachussets governor Mitt Romney, and Rep. Tom Feeney (R-FL), falsely claimed the California ruling came from "unelected judges." But the justices were "confirmed by the public" after being appointed and "also come before voters at the end of their 12-year terms." In fact, each of the seven justices involved in the ruling were approved by overwhelming margins. A Field poll released this week "found that in recent decades, a growing number of Californians have approved allowing same-sex couples to marry, with 51 percent of those polled now approving, up from 44 percent in 2006 and 30 percent in 1985." The poll is the "first ever majority for same-sex marriage in a California poll," Sullivan noted. Beyond the increasingly popular support for marriage equality, courts have an obligation to protect fundamental rights like marriage for historically unpopular minorities.

BENEFITS OF EQUAL RIGHTS: Earlier this week, Schwarzenegger suggested California's economy could grow because of the gay marriage ruling. "I hope that California's economy is booming because everyone is going to come here and get married," he said. The San Francisco Convention and Visitors Bureau expects a tourism boom this summer, and its website now "promotes a gay travel section" and explains that same-sex couples are "officially allowed to marry in the state of California." In a landmark decision in 2004, the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts ruling made the state the first to legalize same-sex marriage. A 2006 report from the Williams Institute noted that "gay workers who receive domestic-partnership benefits are more comfortable in their work environment and far happier -- and more productive -- than employees who do not receive them." Furthermore, a report from the University of Massachusetts predicted that the Massachusetts marriage ruling could bring over $150 million in new spending in the state within a year. Furthermore, "if same-sex marriages increase general spending, the state will receive higher sales tax revenues as well," the report noted. "Workers who have an unmarried domestic partner are doubly burdened: Their employers typically do not provide coverage for domestic partners; and even when partners are covered, the partner's coverage is taxed as income to the employee," the Center for American Progress and Williams Institute noted in December.

JOANNA GROSSMAN AND LINDA MCCLAIN The California Supreme Court Rules in Favor of Marriage for Same-Sex Couples: How Conservative Reasons Led to a Progressive Result: Part Two in a Two-Part Series of Columns In the second in a two-part series of columns, FindLaw columnist and Hofstra law professor Joanna Grossman and FindLaw guest columnist and Boston University law professor Linda McClain continue their analysis of the California Supreme Court's recent, headline-making decision holding that the state constitution requires that California grant same-sex couples an equal right to marry. In this column, Grossman and McClain raise the point that, ironically, the California decision -- though liberal in its result -- was grounded upon socially-conservative beliefs about the importance -- and, indeed, fundamental nature -- of marriage in society. They contend that this potential tension can be resolved because, whether or not society should ideally center on marriage, there is no question that, in fact, it does. In light of this reality, they argue, the exclusion of same-sex couples from a treasured, government-conferred status sends a message of insult and inequality that it is intolerable for the government to convey to its citizens.

CIVIL RIGHTS -- GAY MARRIAGE MAY PROVIDE BOOST TO CALIFORNIA ECONOMY: Last month, California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger ® said that he hopes his state's Supreme Court ruling allowing gay marriages would encourage more couples to come to the state to be wed and boost the state's economy. Indeed, the San Francisco Convention and Visitors Bureau also expects a tourism boom this summer, and its website now "promotes a gay travel section." The Los Angeles Times reports today that "one UCLA study projects that same-sex unions could provide a $370-million shot in the arm to the state economy over the next three years." The Times adds, "By some estimates, weddings and commitment ceremonies for same-sex couples generate $1 billion a year in revenue." PlanetOut, a media and entertainment company that conducts surveys about gay and lesbian consumers, "says gay consumers...spend about 10 [percent] more on nuptials" than their straight counterparts. Tom Rosa, owner of the Cake and Art bakery in Santa Monica said, "Being in West Hollywood, we've been inundated...after the ruling, the phone really picked up."

Gay marriage ban qualifies for California ballot

Gay Marriage Sucks!
Posted by Justin Raimondo on July 01, 2008
The recent decision by the California Supreme Court overturning a ban on gay marriage has, once again, thrust this issue into the malestrom of political debate, and, simultaneously, revived the sagging fortunes of groups on both sides.

On the liberal left, the gay marriage movement is stoking up its engines for a major push to legitimize–so they believe–homosexual relationships in a social as well as a civil sense, and make the final push for gay “equality.”

On the right, particularly the religious fundamentalist right, the scaremongering direct mail fundraisers are enjoying a major bonanza, frightening tens of thousands of little old ladies in Middle America to cough up $10, $20, and even $50 contributions to the Religious Right’s ongoing campaign to Save Marriage From Godless Queers.

Both sides are seriously deluded, albeit in different ways. Let’s start with the Godless Queers…

Marriage is all about children: otherwise, there is no real reason for it, and especially not in the modern world, where internet hook-ups, de facto polygamy, and rampant promiscuity are widely accepted. It is, in short, an economic institution, a financial framework for the bringing up of a new generation. Marriage is an agreement between two adults that they will, together, provide for the needs of their offspring, and, indeed, when the time comes, pass on their accumulated wealth.

This is not to say that childless marriages aren’t really marriages, or that all the emotional and psychological trappings of traditional marriage–monogamy, commitment, and, yes, love—are irrelevant. I am here talking about the civil institution of marriage, as it has evolved in the English-speaking world, and not the cultural phenomenon that has evolved over many millennia—something not created but rather co-opted by the State.

As Camille Paglia points out:

I think [gay marriage] is a flash point for antigay backlash…. That’s the problem: calling it a marriage. If you ask the working class guy on the street, ‘Do you believe in gay marriages?’ it makes him absolutely have a convulsion of revulsion. Marriage was traditionally meant for male and female. It was a bond for the raising of children, so it always had a procreative meaning too, and it has a long sacred tradition behind it. I hate any time that gay causes get mixed up with seeming to profane other people’s sacred tradition. The gay activist leadership has been totally clumsy about that. Rather than treating it in a serious way and saying ‘We respect the tradition of marriage,’ gay activism is associated with throwing balloons of blood at the steps of St. Patrick’s.

Pagilia is right. Marriage is not a civil institution but a religious-cultural tradition that the State has (so far) been forced to respect and recognize—and it is centered around procreation, which is not an issue most homosexuals have to deal with.

Which brings us to the central argument against gay marriage, which is that it is based on a heterosexual model of sexual and emotional relationships, one that just doesn’t fit the gay lifestyle. The whole idea of getting gays hitched is derivative of the central error of egalitarianism, the counterintuitive conception of human beings as being “equal” and, therefore, interchangeable—and therefore one-size-fits-all. Egalitarianism isn’t really a political ideology: it’s a religion, one quite capable of withstanding a sustained assault of clear evidence to the contrary.

I direct your attention to anecdotal yet telling evidence of this misconception by pointing out that, in the rush to the altar by many gay couples in California, the most prominent, and, I’ll bet, most numerous, were female couples. Women, of course, love the idea of marriage, and an old lesbian joke illustrates this penchant for connubial bliss:

What does a lesbian bring to a second date? —A moving van

The sequel to this knee-slapper, however, illustrates that the procreative principle works both ways: What does a lesbian bring to a third date? —A turkey baster ….

Lesbians can, and do, get pregnant: they raise children, thousands of whom are presently alive and kicking. In San Francisco, they make up a significant—and growing—part of the public school population. Lesbians, therefore, fit into the procreative model of marriage, even though they cannot reproduce without the passive participation of men who donate sperm. Gay men, on the other hand, are … men, and no man really wants to get married.

Promiscuity and its attendant attitudes go hand-in-hand with maleness: it’s our genetic and socially constructed legacy, imprinted on our very nature and invincible to the assaults of both politically correct feminists and puritans of the Right. Monogamy and maleness are opposites in a dichotomy: the idea of sexual fidelity is distinctively feminine, linked as it is with an overwhelming (and inherent) need for security and certainty – that is, the certainty that the father of her children will assist in their proper rearing. The collapse of this socio-sexual compact, which undergirds our civilization, is behind the inner city’s descent into barbarism, where roving bands of undisciplined fatherless males have been unleashed, wreaking havoc and filling the prisons.

Marriage, in the context of male homosexuality, isn’t just a contradiction: the very idea of two males getting “married” evokes such protest precisely because it parodies heterosexual unions. A parody, after all, is a take-off on the original, one that apes the form but denies or mocks its essence. This mockery is what the anti-gay marriage crowd bristles at—and rightly so.

Yet it isn’t just this threat of an antigay backlash, which Ms. Paglia rightly points to, that is the most objectionable aspect of the proposal to “legalize” gay marriage. The worst victims of the gay marriage proposal won’t be straights, in spite of the ridiculous cries that marriage will be “devalued,” and will therefore become less popular, if two queers are allowed to get hitched. The ones who will really be hurt by admission to the temple of Hera will be gay men.

With gay marriage comes the inevitable gay divorce—and, believe you me, it’s going to be ugly. If gay activists think that marriage is going to somehow legitimize homosexuality in the eyes of Middle America, then they have yet to imagine the new hit “reality tv” show, “Gay Divorce Court,” which will make the heterosexual version seem like a Sunday School picnic. Indeed, I predict that, given the nature of the male animal, the gay male divorce rate will soon outstrip the rate of new gay male marriages. Gay marriage—in the gay male community, that is—is prone to self-abolition.

This gay male aversion to marriage is prefigured in the rate of domestic partnerships—intended as a precursor of gay marriage—in urban gay ghettos. Even fewer will sign up for that trip to the altar, especially when it dawns on them that with the right to marry comes a few responsibilities, particularly of a financial nature.

This is where the propaganda of the right-wing anti-gay marriage movement goes completely off the rails: the alleged “threat” represented to marriage as an institution by the prospect of gay unions ranges from nil to nonexistent. The idea that gay people, given the opportunity, are going to rush to get married is a fantasy shared by both sides in this debate. But what about states where sexual infidelity is grounds for divorce? Lots of factors no one’s even considered will lead to the big fizzle of “gay marriage.”

Do gay guys really want to have half their incomes claimed by their spouses? With gay marriage comes gay alimony, and that is what is going to make “Gay Divorce Court” such a tawdry tale of twinks on the make and sugar daddies paying through the nose. Gay marriage is going to go out of style rather quickly as a whole series of high-profile divorce cases make their way through the courts.

The very phrase “gay marriage” is an oxymoron. Homosexuality, after all, is really all about the avoidance of marriage – and the responsibility of raising a family. It is the embrace of sensuality for its own sake, as an instrument of pure pleasure rather than procreation. Do gay guys really want to give up what is most attractive – to males, at any rate – about their recreational activities, the tremendous sense of freedom it implies?

Today’s gay activists are embarked on what is truly a futile mission, to make homosexuality seem “natural.” But they really ought to take their cues from their predecessors among the ancients, who took the opposite tack. In ancient Greece, philosophers debated the merits and demerits of homosexual behavior–although “gayness” was a concept unknown to them, thank the gods–and the defenders of this practice were, then as now, confronted with the argument that homosexuality is “unnatural.”

Pausanias, in Plato’s Symposium, answers that homosexuality is the “heavenly love” precisely because it is divorced from earthly carnality and centered around an idealized conception of beauty. It is purely aesthetic, and not at all procreative, that is, completely unnatural and artificial. To Pausanias, and his classical Greek comrades, this made it superior to the crassness of “the meaner sort of men,” exclusive hetereosexuals, who lacked the “higher” capacity to appreciate beauty in all its forms, including the male form.

Far from arguing that homosexuality was the equivalent of heterosexuality, the ancient advocates of same-sex love emphasized the great gulf that separates the two. Rather than aping heterosexuals and relentlessly lobbying for the “right” to marry, Plato’s crowd sought to distance themselves from the mundane and underscore their singularity. Pausanias argues that the choice of younger men over available women is indicative of a superior moral quality, evidence of a purity that defies and transcends biology. Homosexual love, he averred, represents an improvement over nature – which is, after all, the signal characteristic of human civilization.

To the gay activists of the modern era, with their dogma of biological determinism – the “gay gene—and their ingrained egalitarianism, such an argument is inconceivable. For them, there is no choice involved: they fervently believe they are genetically determined to engage in homosexual acts. In this view, sexual orientation is like gender and race. In the context of the society in which we live, this means that it is—or ought to be—illegal to “discriminate” on the basis of sexual orientation, in the same way and for the same reasons it is now a hate crime to consider matters of race, religion, and gender in the realm of housing, employment, and socio-economic relations in general.

This orthodoxy sits atop a mountain of pseudo-science mixed with moralizing, one that asserts—without convincing scientific evidence—that sexual “orientation” is genetically determined. It is the Left-liberal version of Lysenkoism, in which ideology determines political conclusions in advance of the facts (except that Lysenko, and his Stalinist sponsors, were expressing the leftist orthodoxy of the day that men could be engineered through the power of the State.)

The irony is that while most organizations of the Left (and Right) are allergic to the very notion of inheritable differences, the gay rights lobby sticks to a dogmatic genetic determinism that is otherwise relegated to the outer bounds of political incorrectness.

Aside from the lack of scientific evidence, common sense weighs in against this kind of crude genetic reductionism when we’re talking about an area so rife with subtlety, nuance—and variety as human sexuality. After all, what about bisexuals – are they genetic freaks, or are they just making different choices at different times in their lives?

The Kinsey Report, which was hailed by liberals at the time of its release – and damned by conservatives—showed that the great majority of homosexual activity takes place between men who identify as primarily heterosexual: their “gay” activities are furthermore limited to certain periods in their lives. The category of exclusive homosexuals was in the low single digits—although, again, sexual behavior was shown to change over time – another powerful argument against the theory of sexual “orientation,” which insists on rigid allegiance to certain behaviors.

And in the end, genetics is merely a ploy. The entire gay rights movement is based on the most unattractive, indeed pathetic motive imaginable—the need for acceptance.

A true libertarian position on gay marriage is very simple: libertarians seek to prevent the incursion of the State into private affairs. This means that any libertarian worthy of the name must oppose “legalizing” the very real marriages that do exist in the gay community, albeit not in a form most “straights” would find either familiar or acceptable.

The State, after all, has already made a strenuous and largely successful effort to regulate and intervene in the natural life of families, as well as the relations between women and men—the advent of gay marriage would mean extending the reach of the State over the private lives of individuals. Surely no libertarian could agree to such a thing, and would certainly do everything to oppose it.

Yet all sorts of alleged “libertarians” and fellow travelers simply assume that support for gay marriage—and, indeed, for the homosexual lifestyle—is a central principle of libertarianism. It simply isn’t so.

Libertarianism is only a political and economic theory. It has nothing to say whatever about what “lifestyle” a person chooses or the subject of quantum physics: it isn’t an all-embracing moral-metaphysical system that purports to explain everything and has a prescription for living one’s life. Libertarians neither endorse nor damn homosexuals and homosexuality: we simply say that sexual activities between consenting adults are no business of the State – period.

That old leftist slogan, “the personal is the political,” expresses the supremely anti-libertarian instinct that today politicizes even the most intimate social interactions. The irony is that this serves, in turn, to de-sexualize the behavior it seeks to legitimize. As George Orwell put it: politics is merely sex gone sour. In the end, the campaign to “legitimize” homosexuality could very well end up reducing its appeal, and, in a kind of rough justice, reducing the number of homosexuals.

It used to be that the gay world was a kind of underground club, the sort with a big brawny doorman who looked you up and down real good before he let you in the door. Nowadays, just anyone can just waltz right in, without so much as a “by your leave.” It’s all part of a general leveling trend, the tendency toward ordinariness and uniformity that characterizes modern life.

Ostensible conservatives such as Andrew Sullivan and Bruce Bawer, who jumped on the gay marriage bandwagon early on, make a point of emphasizing this ordinariness, pushing the meme that gays are just like straights – only their wedding cakes have same-sex figurines atop them.

In yet another irony, it looks like the gay “liberation” movement has turned into its opposite. Instead of rebelling against the bourgeois social order, and asserting and celebrating their “liberation” from legalistic and moral norms, gay activists seek to reinforce those norms by “broadening” them. What started out as a movement for “gay liberation” has turned into a campaign to make gay society as restrictive of sexuality (particularly male sexuality) as the straight world – and even more boring.

Is nothing sacred anymore? It used to be that the American State had invaded every other aspect of American life: there was hardly a nook or a cranny left unoccupied by our army of bureaucrats, lawyers, judges, and elected politicians. The gay subculture was once largely outside of this system, and therefore homosexuals enjoyed enormous freedom and flexibility in their personal lives, a happy condition that marriage – and any form of state intervention—invariably ends. Which is precisely why gay marriage will prove to be just as unpopular in the gay male community as it is in the heart of the Bible belt, albeit for wildly different reasons.