DEFENDING MARRIAGE

So Mike Kinsley (God love him, because after proposing the abolition of marriage his wife may not) proposes "privatizing" marriage and as predictable as the sunrise a bunch of libertarians shout either "Great idea!" or "Hey, we thought of it first!" Well, good on ya. It's one of the dumbest, least libertarian ideas to come along in quite a while, but if you want to take credit for it go right ahead. My own weakening libertarian leanings prevent me from standing in your way.

Here's the thing: marriage keeps the state out of your face. Eve Tushnet is on to this truth, promising more posts on it in the future. I'm looking forward to them--she's as sharp as they come. My own initial meandering take on it is a few posts down.

Not to pre-empt her, I'll take another tack entirely from the ones I expect her to take. The idea that we should suddenly "privatize" or abolish marriage is itself an idea only a tyrant could love. The US is currently home to about 300 million people; most adults living here get married at some point. No one's forcing us to marry. We don't have many arranged marriages in this country anymore. We marry because we want to, we choose to, and we stay married for all sorts of reasons--for the kids, for the tax incentives, or for the good old fashioned reason that we actually love the one we're with.

Abolishing marriage would, presumably, force everyone currently married to suddenly become un-married. Millions of marriages would be crushed instantly under the government's bootheel, whether those married people wanted it or not. Even if a majority voted for it (which isn't happening), you'd still have put the state in the position of forcing people who want to stay married to break their bonds. That's a breathtakingly totalitarian move. Even the Soviets never went quite that far. Libertarians should oppose it for its sheer and obvious invasiveness. The state would enter every married home in America and tear up their marriage licenses, forcing us all into the very common law arrangements that we eschewed when we freely chose marriage in the first place.

Libertoids and your erstwhile ally Mike Kinsely, if you seriously want to abolish marriage, start with your own and see how far you get. Leave me and my family out of your arrogant social engineering.