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Tuesday, January 06, 2004

Sullivan's gay marriage crusade 


At the risk of sounding insensitive, Andrew Sullivan can see a story about chocolate chip cookies and tell you that it means we should have gay marriage. I don't understand how he can argue that Britney's joke marriage becomes an argument for gay marriage. If heterosexuals are abusing the right of marriage, therefore we should extend it to homosexuals too? That just violates all of Sullivan's small government principles. Imagine his making these arguments on other areas of policy:

• Some poor people are abusing the welfare system by living off their checks and not looking for work; therefore, we should extend welfare to middle class people.

• Farm subsidies are bad because they make products more expensive and benefits mostly one corporation; therefore, we should expand textile subsidies.

• Some presidents, all of whom are over 35 and born in the U.S. as required by the Constitution, didn't do their jobs very well; therefore, we should let 12-year-olds in Mongolia run for president of the U.S.

If a government privilege is extended to one group but not to another, and some in the former group is abusing that privilege, one wouldn't expect to hear an argument, especially from a small government conservative, that the privilege should be extended to the latter group. I think as often is the case all of Sullivan's principles go out the window when he talks about gay marriage.
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