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Intellectual Conservatism and Gay Marriage 
Here is what I consider to be the intellectual conservative dissection of the gay marriage issue:Supporting the traditional definition of marriage is neither hateful, bigoted nor ignorant. In fact, the majority(57%)of Americans, to includeBarack Obama, happen to agree that a "marriage" is defined as the union of one man and onewoman. As a bit of perspective for you liberals, Obama only won the 2008 popular vote by 53% - a marginmany liberal publicationsconsidered to be a "landslide victory." If Obama won by a "landslide" with just 53% of the vote, what doesthat say about gay marriage?But let us look at this issue pragmatically. The Left needs to make it appear as though Conservatives are filled with hatefor gays - because they'll have an easier time gathering people to their cause if the legality and constitutionality of thematter stays off the table. Liberals know that the best (if not the only) weapon in their arsenal is their ability to appeal to pathos.If not for liberal academia's persistent efforts to drum up euphemisms to favorably and continually reshape the wayissues are debated, liberalism would have been snuffed out decades ago. It's not as if socialism and liberalism haven't been rejected time and again by the American people - they have! It's just that liberals are quite masterful at repackagingthe same crap and presenting it in such a way that Americans forget why they rejected it in the first place.This issue with gay marriage is no different. You will be hard-pressed to find a liberal who is willing to debate you on thesubstantive legal issues regarding gay marriage. Instead, you'll hear a lot of violin solos about "everyone deserving equalrights." This, my friends, is the current liberal euphemism for gay marriage. Gay marriage advocates have usurped astate-funded benefit as a "right," irrespective of the state's will to recognize it as such, and then continue to call it a"right" in the arguments which follow, even though there is no standing legal precedent which defines marriage as such.Before I dive into the legal ramifications and precedent of the issue, I want to lay down a disclaimer. I do not usereligious context to frame my political debates. I've no doubt that the founding fathers were religious/ faithful men andthat they never intended for Christianity to be treated in the ways that it is today.But as a philosophy major, I learned that faith is not and cannot be a justification for any empirical and universalargument. This is true for either morality or legality. Attributing the source of your reasoning to something the rest of the population may or may not have faith in is not conducive to creating sound social contracts. Saying "these are inalienablerights because god gave them to us," and saying "there are inalienable rights because we gave them to ourselves," for thenonbelieving population, is essentially the same thing. And because the law applies equally to all, its foundation must beequally applicable to all as well.I am parting from traditional Conservative dogma when I say this (or at least the explanation outlined in Mark Levin'sLiberty and Tyranny), but our inalienable rights come from neither our own positivism nor God. In America, our inalienable rights come from the Constitution of the United States. Those rights which are conferred to U.S. citizens aregranted irrespective of that person's religious faith, sexual orientation, gender, race, creed, etc.Can we say that politicians ought to make every decision without an ounce of moral or religious motivation? Certainlynot. It's quite clear that our subjective decisions are framed by our personal value systems. However, the intellectualconservative does not believe in legal positivism and has the utmost respect for our Constitution and the founding principles of our forefathers. The law cannot just be whatever we want it to be in a given circumstance. That would leadto anarchy and tyranny. Conversely, the law ought not be so immobile as to find itself incapable of adapting to modernconflicts.And so the intellectual conservative must balance the legal foundations laid down by our founders, historical context,legal precedent, and the modern-day empirical knowledge of the issues which face us.Where does this leave the intellectual conservative on gay marriage?
 
The intellectual conservative doesn't care what people do in the privacy of their own bedrooms. Conservatives have,historically, advocated people's right to do what they want (within the law). The best conservative arguments don'tsuggest that gays ought to be kept apart, simply that the state is not legally obligated to recognize their union.There is a huge, insurmountable "rights" gap here that people with a one-dimensional understanding of the gay marriageissue always fail to grasp. Insofar as a "marriage" is a state-recognized and subsidized status, the people of that state havethe right to define it.It is vitally necessary, from a legal perspective, to distinguish between a benefit and a right. The government gives benefits to thousands of groups without also giving them to others. Couples with children, military veterans, the disabled,the elderly, minorities, etc. all get tax-funded benefits because the people who are funding those benefits have consentedto it (or at least refused to adequately object).When looking at the gay marriage issue, one has to ponder... what is this really all about? Gays can already have anyrelationship they wish, what they're fighting for here is state-recognized status. Why? They can call themselves"married" until they're blue in the face, why do they need to the state to recognize their union? Because with state-recognition comes state benefits. And here we find the crux of the issue for the intellectual conservative - the reason theintellectual conservative wants gay marriage to be decided state-by-state isn't because he has some vehement hatred for gays, but because he believes that a state's citizens should have the autonomy to decide what they will and will notsubsidize."Marriage," as it currently functions in American society, is a state-recognized status which yields state-subsidized benefits. Therefore, the intellectual conservative correctly asserts that each state must decide for itself whether it willinclude gay unions within its classification of "marriage."But let's follow the gay marriage advocate's arguments to their furthest, logical conclusion. Let's say Perez Hilton decidesthat he thinks state-funded marital benefits ought to be granted to all gay couples too. Suddenly, our government nolonger has legal precedent to give a benefit to one person and not another. People with children could no longer get anadditional tax cut over those tax payers without children. People without disabilities would then be guaranteed the samefederal funding as the disabled. Rich students would be guaranteed the same federal college aid as poor students. Why?Because government-funded benefits would be considered, under legal precedent, as a "right."What's the result of this? Well, obviously, the most likely result is government bankruptcy. Or, we would end up withoutright socialism, where the government takes 100% of everyone's revenue and then divvies it up equally to everyone.Sounds super, eh comrade?The fact of the matter is that all sorts of demographics get benefits that others don't. Can you imagine a rich, white,Christian male college student protesting that he's not getting the same federally funded "rights" as his poor black peers?He'd be lambasted!The simple, conservative solution to the gay marriage issue is to completely separate religious "marriage" from state-recognized unions. Then let each state's citizens vote on what they will and will not recognize as a "civil union" toreceive tax-funded benefits. Remove government from religious marriage entirely, and redefine all state-recognizedunions as "civil unions," because that's what it means to be a "civil union."Personally, I think a "marriage" is a union between a man and a woman. That's what the word means; that's what it hasalways meant. Not a man and a man. Not a woman and a woman. Not three men and two women. Not a man an ape andan elephant. Just one man and one woman. That's what the word means, and it would seem the majority of this countryagrees with me (for a change...).If/when I get to vote on gay marriage again (as I did in 2004 for Georgia in concurrence with76% of the majority vote) Iwill vote against it because I think there are better ways to spend my tax money, and I support the traditional definitionof marriage. But by the same token, an "intellectual conservative" would accept the opposite decision as part of thedemocratic process if his state decided to accept same sex unions. That said, this is an issue to be decided by the people,not the courts.
 
The suggestion that all anti-gay marriage people are bigots or hateful is inherently false. Liberals need to get over theassumption that everyone (except them of course) is a bigot. I don't know how it goes over-looked thatconservatives areamong the most giving, generous and charitable people on the planet. Yes, there are Christians who feel obligated toforce their beliefs on others, but hating all Christians because of a select minority is no different than hating all gays for their role in the spread of HIV; it's ignorant.Liberals want to permanently link all accounts of conservatism to the far religious right because the Left is convinced itdiscredits the Right's position. To-date, they're right. I rarely, if ever, hear a conservative talk about gay marriage outsideof a religious context. As a result, liberals are afforded the opportunity to side-step the legal and logical flaws in their own arguments and speak only to the emotion of the matter. Instead of discussing the usurpation of state-funded marital benefits, liberals now get to talk about how "radical conservatives are forcing their religious beliefs on others." It's a dogand pony show, and it completely side-steps the heart of the matter. Now, I'd like to address another liberal argument: the claim that "gays are being denied equal protection under the law."If this were the extent of the liberal argument I'd say, in part, they're right. I don't understand the logic behindDon't Ask Don't Tell, and gays are being discriminated against in several other ways which are neither state-funded nor affectanyone else but themselves. The intellectual conservative should rail,as President Reagan did for gay teachers,against this unfair treatment.But it's important to note the distinction between the "enforcement of a negative" and the "denial of a positive."Preventing a gay couple's children from visiting them in a hospital is the enforcement of a negative. Kickinghomosexuals out of the military because of their sexual orientation is the enforcement of a negative. Firing gays becauseof their sexual orientation (and then denying them equal protection under discrimination laws) is an enforcement of anegative.But the liberal does not stop at this conclusion, but takes it a step further to claim, "gays are not being provided equal protection under the law... because the state refuses to recognize their unions." The state is in no way obligated torecognize or subsidize their union if the majority of people in that state are not inclined to do so. That's the denial of a positive. These are two dramatically different things. Which brings us to the next liberal talking point.Gay marriage advocates love to pretend like their cause is akin to women's suffrage and the civil rights movement. Thestark difference between those movements and the gay marriage movement is that women and minorities were beingdenied rights guaranteed them by the Constitution. They were being taxed but denied the right to vote. They were beingtaxed but denied equal access to the public services which their tax dollars helped subsidize. They were not being treatedequally or fairly by the judicial system. All of these are instances were a negative impact was being directly enforced ona discriminatory basis.By contrast, there are instances where gays are having negatives enforced on them (as I just mentioned). As I said, theintellectual conservative should rail against these discriminations because they fly in the face of the Constitutional promise of equal protection under the law. But the Constitutional promise of equality says nothing of state-funded benefits. These benefits are exactly that, benefits which can be conferred or denied at the will of the people who fundthem. The denial of a positive benefit is not the same as the negation of a right.There is no instance where the enforcement of a negative on the gay community would necessitate forced state-recognition of their unions. Each instance of unequal treatment of the gay community can be addressed withoutredefining marriage or forced state-recognition. All that is required of the intellectual conservative is that he applies theconstitution accurately. And while there are instances where gays might be getting treated unfairly, and evenunconstitutionally, each of these instances can be solved through proper enforcement of existing law, marriage need not be redefined.This of course leads the liberal to the conclusion that the conservative is propagating a "separate but equal" approach.This is not the case. Homosexuals have exactly the same opportunity to marry as heterosexuals... because marriage isdefined as the union of one man and one woman. Gays aren't being denied their right to marry, and are hence not beingtreated with "separate but equal" legislation. Rather, it is the LGBT community which has sought to redefine marriage tosuit its own desires. Marriage is what it is, and what it has always been. If gays want to have a "marriage," they have asequal an opportunity to do that as anyone else.
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