GAY MARRIAGE IS A "DEEPLY CONSERVATIVE IDEA": Interview with Dale Carpenter

...In a wide-ranging interview, Carpenter built an intriguing and provocative case that political conservatives not only ought to oppose the proposed Minnesota Marriage Amendment, conservatives ought to support same-sex marriage. In fact, conservatives ought to encourage it.

"There are two separate issues here," Carpenter said. "One is a matter of what the courts should do. Should the courts be involved in basically forcing gay marriage on an unwilling population? My answer to that is no.

"The second question is a policy question. Is gay marriage radical and therefore a dangerous change in marriage? My answer to that is also no." ...

It's Carpenter's position that an amendment stating "the courts shall have no jurisdiction over decisions of the Legislature regarding the gender requirements of marriage" (or words to that effect) would protect against judicial activism. That approach still leaves the Legislature, elected by the people, free to decide the gay marriage issue as a legislative issue, not a constitutional issue. ...

On the subject of gay marriage itself, Carpenter believes that whatever view one takes of homosexuality, a political conservative ought to support gay marriage.
"Given that there are homosexuals in the United States, and they are not going to be eliminated by any means acceptable to the American people, what is to be done with them?" he asks.

"Are we to shut them out of traditional institutions like marriage? To marginalize them to where they become hostile to traditional values? What would conservative social theory predict would happen to a group of people cut off from the stabilizing influence of marriage?

"I think it would say a lot. All kinds of pathologies -- drug and alcohol abuse, rampant promiscuity, more depression, less productivity, more dependence on government and so on. Marriage has a very powerful positive affect."

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posted by Eve at 8:25 PM | Link |

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