Sunday, June 26, 2011
Great News from New York
When is it appropriate that the state dictates to people how they will run their personal lives, what religions they may and may not practice, who they may and may not have voluntary relations with, and what those voluntary relations may be?
Never!
Hence it is great news that the State of New York has legalized same sex marriage. Gay people have the same right as anyone to choose whom they love, to enter into marriage with them, and to build their lives as they see best. It was never legitimate for the state to violate these rights, any more than it was legitimate for the state to outlaw the rights of people of different races or different religious beliefs to marry. Sacrificing the rights of the individual for some concern of the state is never legitimate -- the state is only a means, and its sole purpose is protecting the rights of the individual. Or as someone else put it, "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government..."
Unforeseen Contingencies salutes the coalition of Republicans and Democrats in New York who are figuring this out.
Never!
Hence it is great news that the State of New York has legalized same sex marriage. Gay people have the same right as anyone to choose whom they love, to enter into marriage with them, and to build their lives as they see best. It was never legitimate for the state to violate these rights, any more than it was legitimate for the state to outlaw the rights of people of different races or different religious beliefs to marry. Sacrificing the rights of the individual for some concern of the state is never legitimate -- the state is only a means, and its sole purpose is protecting the rights of the individual. Or as someone else put it, "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government..."
Unforeseen Contingencies salutes the coalition of Republicans and Democrats in New York who are figuring this out.
