The New Hampshire legislature has passed bill offering civil unions to same-sex couples (link). They will be the 5th state to have either civil unions or same-sex marriage. It is good to see New Hampshire living up to its motto.
While the government has little business subsidizing or regulating marriage, if the country is committed to that, it should do so without discriminating on irrelevant criteria. Reasonable arguments for subsidizing raising children can be made, although I am very hesitant to take that position, but any such subsidy should done directly, and would have to apply to same-sex couples raising children as well. Marriage itself is a fundamentally social interaction, and government has no business encouraging, discouraging or restricting social interactions.
Posner of the Becker-Posner Blog has an interesting comment on marriage subsidies.
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April 29, 2007 at 5:58 pm
cdfox
Hmm, so perhaps welfare benefits should not depend on the number of children a recipient has? Of course, anyone suggesting this in the public sphere would be decried as a hater of singles mothers in poverty. Argh, we need to do with sacred cows in our public discourse!
In response to your post, John, I’m not sure that government discrimination in marriage is such a big deal, as long as other instances of discrimination are considered permissible. Many programs and laws discriminate between people on the basis of a variety of characteristics. For example, the federal government’s WIC Program provides benefits for low-income women with children up to age 5, discriminating against households that do not fit this profile. But discrimination here is usually not considered such a bad thing. Thus discrimination, going by the rubric of mainstream opinion, is not a bad thing in itself. It matters who is being discriminated against and who is benefitting.
So same sex marriage advocates cannot argue that discrimination in marriage is wrong just because it’s discrimination, unless they are prepared to argue the same thing in the case of all government programs that discriminate on the basis of characteristics that are normally thought inappropriate to use in that way, e.g. gender and sexual orientation.
Since such advocates are not, I think, willing to argue this larger point, they must instead argue that discrimination is wrong in this particular case. And there lies the problem. Many Americans think discrimination against same sex couples in the case of marriage is not wrong. So, ultimately, it boils down to the culture war that we have seen unfold.
I, and I think you too John, might like to argue the larger point that discrimination on the basis of some characteristics is wrong no matter what policy we consider. It would easiest to argue from the strict Libertarian position that there shouldn’t be discrimination on the basis of almost any characteristic, except maybe if you’ve murdered someone or stolen something. However, I think we’re both amenable to a greater degree of latitude for government policy than that. I can’t say I’m completely convinced that the government shouldn’t discriminate on the basis of income, for example. Haven’t made up my mind yet. I think we can both agree that whatever latitude is granted to policy makers needs to be strictly defined and the reasons for giving them such latitude plainly stated, perhaps through a stronger constitution.
April 29, 2007 at 8:31 pm
jsalvati
Government discrimination is arguably ok if the purpose of the discrimination is within the bounds of the purpose of government and the reasoning is sound. Establishing some sort of marriage morality or encouraging some particular structure for society is firmly and inarguably outside of the proper scope of government. Influencing private social interactions is simply not the government’s business for the same reason that influencing most (though not all) economic interactions is not the government’s business; private interactions don’t meaningfully affect anyone uninvolved in the interaction decisions and the government usually doesn’t have any better judgment than individuals. I am currently writing an essay on roughly this point, arguing that anyone who is an economic libertarian should also be a social libertarian if they wish to be consistent.
April 30, 2007 at 11:28 am
Jeff
“Argh, we need to do with sacred cows in our public discourse!”
Sacred cow burger is quite tasty, perhaps we should slaughter all of them.
On a more serious note, I agree entirely with John on both his posts here.
April 30, 2007 at 2:19 pm
cdfox
John, I think we are agreeing with each other here. In my overly long comment, I was just trying to point out a subtlety. You’re right:
“Government discrimination is arguably ok if the purpose of the discrimination is within the bounds of the purpose of government and the reasoning is sound.”
All I was saying that, just as the government shouldn’t descriminate between same sex and hetero couples, it shouldn’t discriminate between married and unmarried people, either. That is, I think the more consistent position is to oppose both kinds of discrimination and call for an end to the legal institution of marriage altogether. Should we really ally ourselves with the majority of same sex marriage advocates who only want to end discrimination based on sexual orientation and don’t care about challenging legal marriage? Is it worth the compromise to support the expansion of special government-provided benefits to a slightly larger subset of the population? It seems like we’re trading less of one kind of discrimination for more of another. What is your opinion?