As the Supreme Court hears arguments on the constitutionality of the Defense of Marriage Act, a well of support for something called “marriage equality” has risen on my Facebook newsfeed. Immediately I bristled at the new term. People used to say that they were for gay marriage, not for some abstract notion of the equality of marriages. And whenever I hear the word ‘equality’ I think of Erik von Kuehnelt-Leddihn’s observation that “In order to bring equality to a hedge, one needs garden shears.” Indeed, one could conceivably bring about ‘marriage equality’ by restricting the rights of heterosexuals just as much by expanding the rights of homosexuals.
Of course, that’s not what the ‘marriage equality’ Facebook crusaders want, so I considered trying to convince them that ‘marriage freedom’–the simple idea that all consenting adults should be able to enter into any non-coercive contractual relationship that they want and call it whatever they want–should be the true ideal. But I’ve realized that the term ‘marriage equality’ does convey what this battle is really about in a way that the term “marriage freedom” might not. By defining marriage as solely between one man and one woman, the Defense of Marriage Act denies gay couples rights to certain federal tax credits and Social Security benefits that heterosexual married couples can take advantage of. If the Supreme Court strikes down this law, therefore, married gay couples will be able to equally partake in the welfare state–what Bastiat famously characterized as the “the great fiction through which everybody endeavors to live at the expense of everybody else.”
Conor Boyack has an excellent post explaining why this is the wrong way to approach gay marriage. He writes:
Equality before and non-discrimination by the law is important, to be sure. But increasing the size and scope of the state is not the proper method to fulfill that objective. As is usually the case, the opposite is true; reducing and ultimately removing the other barrier is best…
Proponents of altering marriage law in the states and at the federal level claim that prohibitions against gay marriage are unfair and discriminatory. They claim that equality before the law demands that their relationships likewise be licensed and sanctioned by the state.
As with sales taxes, the state should not be enlarged in pursuit of equality in marriage licensure. Because the government has no business being involved in marriage, the discrimination inherent in existing marriage law is best remedied by removing it altogether, or at least reducing the inequality by removing tax credits, estate planning benefits, and other incentives currently restricted to heterosexual couples whose unions are licensed by the state.
I would only add that taxes should be reduced across the board to make up for the elimination of tax credits that would result from the government getting out of the marriage business. That would lead to real marriage freedom.
