A recent AP/GfK poll finds a slim majority (51%) of Americans say businesses with religious objections should be required to serve same-sex couples. Forty-six percent (46%) say these business owners should be allowed to refuse service. However, for business owners specifically offering wedding-related services, Americans say these particular businesses “should be allowed to refuse service” by a margin of 59% to 39%.
Taken together, these polls suggest that a sizeable share of Americans think the state should not prohibit same-sex couples from getting married and that the state should not require wedding-related business owners with religious objections to provide services against their will.
These results correspond with the nuanced libertarian argument for both religious freedom AND same-sex marriage.
Gay marriage was a win for liberty, but when cake bakers and others are fined for adhering to their beliefs about same-sex marriage, a new kind of discrimination is upon us.
In the Wall Street Journal, Cato’s Vice President for Legal Affairs Roger Pilon discusses recent situations that have forced private individuals and organizations into associations they found offensive.
On June 12, 1967, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down bans on interracial marriage in more than a dozen states in the case of Loving v. Virginia. Today, that same court held in a 5-4 decision that the Fourteenth Amendment requires a state to license a marriage between two people of the same sex.
In this short video, originally published in 2011, we make the constitutional case for marriage equality.
“There’s a good libertarian argument that marriage ought to be separated from the State, something the government shouldn’t be involved in. But, as long as the government is involved in setting up special legal status, whether that is benefits or simply permissions or licenses, then it should do so on an equal basis, it should treat every citizen equally. And, that, to me, is the fundamental argument here: that adults should be able to marry the person they choose,” says catoinstitute Executive Vice President David Boaz.
“Marriage is a constantly changing social institution that adapts to social and economic conditions. And when those conditions change, marriage changes,” says Trevor Burrus, Cato Institute Research Fellow. Read his op-ed, the third most read piece today in the Washington Post.
The Supreme Court on Tuesday heard arguments over the constitutionality of gay marriage. Vindicating conventional wisdom, the arguments suggested that the Court will find that states must both recognize and license same sex marriage. And according to Cato scholar Ilya Shapiro, the Court should – and probably will – stay away from pontificating about marriage or philosophizing on the nature of rights. “The Fourteenth Amendment is silent as to marriage, as it is regarding all other possible objects of state regulation,” said Shapiro. “What it speaks to instead is the equal protection of the laws.”
“Cato has consistently embraced civil liberties, including but not limited to the right to same-sex marriage. By contrast, conservatives – with whom we are mistakenly equated – have been selective in their endorsement of personal freedom.”
A new HBO documentary, The Case Against 8, takes a behind-the-scenes look at Proposition 8 and the case to overturn California’s ban on same-sex marriage. Unfortunately, when it comes to libertarianism, they don’t quite get it right.
The film focuses on Ted Olson and David Boies, political foes who faced off as opposing attorneys in Bush v. Gore, yet fought on the same side in first federal marriage equality lawsuit to reach the U.S. Supreme Court.
In one scene, Chad Griffin, then Board President of the American Foundation for Equal Rights, discusses the battle for gay rights with Olson. Griffin suggests, in an ill-conceived attempt at humor, that he might re-think his support for same-sex marriage after hearing that both Cato and its chairman, Robert A. Levy, are vocal advocates for marriage equality.
Responding to the film, Levy points out that the filmmakers have made the all-too-common mistake of conflating libertarians with conservatives. But, marriage equality is just one of many issues where the libertarian perspective is much closer to the liberal stance than the conservative one.
The reason for this, according to Levy, is that both conservatives and liberals are philosophically inconsistent. While conservatives want smaller government in the fiscal sphere, they demand bigger government in the social and foreign policy realms. Meanwhile, liberals want less government control of their personal lives, but more government oversight over markets.
“Unlike liberals and conservatives, Cato scholars have a consistent, minimalist view of the proper role of government,” writes Levy. “We want government out of our wallets, out of our bedrooms, and out of foreign entanglements unless America’s vital interests are at stake.”
A D.C.-based public policy research organization (or "think tank") dedicated to the values of individual liberty, limited government, free markets, and peace.
