‘LGBT’ Demands Get a Boost From Hillary Clinton and the U.N. (724)

The Yogyakarta Principles pressure foreign governments to grant special protection for persons based on sexual orientation and 'gender identity.'

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by DALE O’LEARY 04/11/2012 

In 2006, a group of self-appointed “human-rights experts” met in Yogyakarta, Indonesia, and developed the set of principles, the purpose of which was to pressure governments to grant special protections to persons based on sexual orientation and gender identity. Since then the changes recommended in the Yogyakarta Principles have received support from various sources.

On Dec. 6, in a speech in Geneva, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton put the full weight of the Obama administration behind the “LGBT” (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender) demands, announcing “a new Global Equality Fund that will support the work of civil society organizations working on these issues around the world.” Clinton also issued a threat that U.S. “foreign assistance” could be tied to a government’s support of “LGBT rights.” U.N. Secretary General Ban-Ki Moon recently also supported the LGBT demands.

In November of 2011 a report entitled “Discriminatory Laws and Practices and Acts of Violence Against Individuals Based on Their Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity” was issued by the U.N. high commissioner for human rights, which incorporated most of the “LGBT” demands found in the Yogyakarta Principles. This March, the U.N. Human Rights Council sponsored a discussion of the report in Geneva.

Only those who supported the “LGBT” demands were allowed to make presentations. In protest, ambassadors from the Organization of Islamic Countries and the Arab Group staged a walkout. Before leaving, Saeed Sarwar, the Pakistani delegate, told the group: “The OIC member states would like to record their consistent and firm opposition to the subject under discussion.” Other countries, including the Russian Federation, some African nations, as well as the Holy See, also opposed the “LGBT” demands.

While those pushing for the change speak of unprovoked violence against sexual minorities, the changes demanded address more than bodily harm. Those defending family and religious freedom know that at the U.N. even the most innocent-sounding language with even the most apparently limited application once adopted into an internationally recognized document can be infinitely expanded to something that is totally contrary to the intention of those who approved the change. They are, therefore, extremely wary of approving any new language, no matter how seemingly benign. Concern in this case is justified, since the supporters of the addition of “sexual orientation and gender identity” have laid out their ultimate objectives in the Yogyakarta Principles. For example:  

Principle 3 calls on governments to change legal documents to reflect a person’s “self-defined gender identity,” whether or not the person has been surgically altered to resemble the other sex.

Self-defined gender identity would cover men and women who have been surgically altered to resemble the sex they were not born as, as well as those who simply want to dress in public as the other sex and even those who insist that they not be labeled male or female. Governments would be forced to change birth certificates and other documents, even for those who had not been surgically altered. It also would allow the so-called sex-change process to begin before puberty, allowing troubled children to attend elementary school as the other sex.

Some men who want to be women are attracted to other men and want to marry them, which would be a “same-sex marriage.” Likewise, some women want to be recognized as male and marry women. There is another group of men, labeled by some as “autogynephiles” (men who are in love with the image of themselves as a woman). These men are sexually aroused by secretly dressing in women’s clothing, while outwardly living as normal males, marrying and having children. Later in life their desire to resemble a woman becomes stronger, and they seek surgical alteration; however, some continue to be attracted to women and label themselves “lesbians.”

The Church opposes surgical alteration of this kind as mutilation (Catechism, 2297) and will not change baptismal records, marry or ordain anyone who claims to have changed his gender. The Catechism teaches: “Except when performed for strictly therapeutic medical reason, directly intended amputations, mutilations and sterilizations performed on innocent persons are against the moral law” (2297).

Pope Benedict XVI reinforced this teaching in  Genesis in an Advent address to the Curia in 2008 when he stated that God’s creation of male and female is a gift, and the Pope criticized those who would alter it.

“It is a question here of faith in the Creator and of listening to the language of creation, the devaluation of which leads to the self-destruction of man and therefore to the destruction of the same work of God.” 

Principle 5 of the Principles: “Impose appropriate criminal penalties for violence, threats of violence, incitement to violence and related harassment based on the sexual orientation or gender identity of any person or group of persons in all sphere of life, including the family.” There are already laws against violence that should be enforced, but sexual minorities are very quick to accuse anyone who opposes their agenda of harassment. Simply reading Scriptures on sexual sin has been treated in some jurisdictions as “inciting to violence.” This principle also calls for “awareness-raising to combat prejudices that underlie violence.” Such campaigns create intolerance against Christians who express disapproval of the “LGBT” agenda.

Principle 16: “Ensure that education methods, curricula and resources serve to enhance understanding of and respect for, inter alia, diverse sexual orientations and gender identities.” Such teaching necessarily demeans religious teachings and violates the rights of parents to control the education of their children.

Principle 19: “Ensure that notions of public order, morality, public health and public security are not employed to restrict, in a discriminatory manner, any exercise of freedom of opinion or expression that affirms diverse sexual orientation or gender identities.” This would, among other things, prevent governments from setting up dress codes or restricting grossly immodest “gay parades.”

and closing venues (such as circuit parties and bathhouses) where sexually transmitted diseases and HIV are known to spread.

Principle 24 redefines the “right to found a family” to include “access to adoption or assisted procreation (including donor insemination) without discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity. This “right” has been used to force religion-based agencies out of the adoption business in Massachusetts, Illinois and Great Britain.

Principle 29 calls for legal accountability of “those directly or indirectly responsible” for violations of human-rights violations, as defined in the Principles. Of concern is the word “indirectly.” This reasoning has already been used to accuse ministers who preach against specific sexual sins of indirectly causing violence against sexual minorities, even when the perpetrators had never been in the church.

Archbishop Silvano Tomasi, the Holy See’s representative to the United Nations, issued a statement on the 2011 report from the U.N. high commissioner for human rights. While condemning violence and unjust discrimination against any person, the Holy See opposed the use of the categories “sexual orientation and gender identity,” according to Archbishop Tomasi:

“… the term ‘gender’ [as defined in the Statute of the International Criminal Court] refers to the two sexes, male and female, within the context of society. The term ‘gender’ does not indicate any meaning different from the above. Thus, the Holy See notes that the categories ‘sexual orientation’ and ‘gender identity’ find no recognition or clear and agreed definition in international law. Any requirement for states to take such terms into account in their efforts to promote and implement fundamental human rights could result in serious uncertainty in the application of law and undermine the ability of states to enter into and enforce new and existing human-rights conventions and standards.”

The commissioner’s report condemns “homophobic and transphobic attitudes” and “heteronormative gender identity.” This represents a clear challenge not only to freedom of religion, but also to those who believe, based on natural law, in the differences between men and women, traditional marriage and in the impossibility of changing sex.

Dale O’Leary is a freelance writer and lecturer. She is the author of many articles and the book The Gender Agenda: Redefining Equality and One Man, One Woman. She has made national and international appearances on television and radio. She currently resides in Florida.

Project Inspired - Against Cosmopolitan and Pornagraphic Culture

http://www.projectinspired.com/

What is Project Inspired?

Project Inspired is written by former fashion model Nicole Weider, who believes it’s time for a Hollywood voice to take the best interests of young women to heart. From relationship and style advice to inspirational quotes to a real look at celebrities in the media, Nicole draws from her own experiences to make the message clear to young women: Be a person of value and confidence – be your own best self – through leading a true Christian life. Need a good place to start? Try here!

What is Project Anti-Cosmo?

Cosmopolitan is emblematic of what’s wrong with our culture today. The content of the magazine is predominantly (and often explicitly) about sex. The articles you’ll typically find in its pages advise “hookups” without a hint of emotional connection. Yet, unlike “R” rated movies, there’s no “age limit” for anyone to access it, so young teen girls are reading, absorbing, and acting on its destructive message. Indeed, the increasing focus on sex sex sex encourages the magazine’s impressionable readers to make the most shallow choices imaginable. Because of its popularity (it’s in every supermarket, at the nail salon, in waiting rooms, and on your mom’s nightstand) it has become one of the media’s worst influences on teenage girls. Cosmopolitan needs to change its content or be made harder to access. Join me in my fight to force Cosmopolitan to be more responsible as a guide in the lives of young women. See my videos and posts about this important mission!

About Nicole

Nicole Weider is a Salem, Oregon native who moved to Los Angeles and quickly found success as a fashion model at the age of 17. After eight years of modeling and acting, she’s ditched her former life and made it her mission to share her personal story and faith with young women in the hopes of inspiring them – with spirituality, truth and fun! – to live their best lives.

Designed for Sex

J. BUDZISZEWSKI

What we lose when we forget what sex is for.

Shelly is getting herself drunk so that she can bring herself to go home with the strange man seated next to her at the bar. One o'clock. Steven is busy downloading pornographic images of children from Internet bulletin boards. Two o'clock. Marjorie, who used to spend every Friday night in bed with a different man, has been binging and purging since eleven. Three o'clock. Pablo stares through the darkness at the ceiling, wondering how to convince his girlfriend to have an abortion. Four o'clock. After partying all night, Jesse takes another man home, not mentioning that he tests positive for an incurable STD. Five o'clock. Lisa is in the bathroom, cutting herself delicately with a razor. This isn't what my generation expected when it invented the sexual revolution. The game isn't fun anymore. Even some of the diehard proponents of that enslaving liberation have begun to show signs of fatigue and confusion.

Liberation Fatigue
Naomi Wolf, in her book Promiscuities, reports that when she lost her own virginity at age 15, there was "something important missing." Apparently, the thing missing was the very sense that anything could be important. In her book Last Night in Paradise, Katie Roiphe poignantly wonders what could be wrong with freedom: "It's not the absence of rules exactly, the dizzying sense that we can do whatever we want, but the sudden realization that nothing we do matters."

Desperate to find a way to make it matter, some young male homosexuals court death, deliberately seeking out men with deadly infections as partners; this is called "bug chasing." At the opposite extreme, some of those who languish in the shadow of the revolution toy with the idea of abstinence — but an abstinence that arises less from purity or principle than from boredom, fear, and disgust. In Hollywood, of all places, it has become fashionable to talk up Buddhism, a doctrine that finds the cure of suffering in the ending of desire, and the cure of desire in annihilation.

Speaking of exhaustion, let me tell you about my students. In the '80s, if I suggested in class that there might be any problem with sexual liberation, they said that everything was fine — what was I talking about? Now if I raise questions, many of them speak differently. Although they still live like libertines, it's getting old. They are beginning to sound like the children of third-generation Maoists.

My generation may have ordered the sexual revolution; theirs is paying the price. I am not speaking only of the medical price of sexual promiscuity. To be sure, those consequences are ruinous: At the beginning of the revolution, most physicians had to worry about only two or three sexually transmitted diseases, and now it is more like two or three dozen. But I am not speaking only of broken bodies. I am speaking, for example, of broken childhoods. What is it like for your family to break up? What is it like to be passed from stepparent to stepparent to stepparent? What is it like to grow up knowing that you would have had a sister, but she was aborted?

Speaking of exhaustion, let me tell you about my students. In the '80s, if I suggested in class that there might be any problem with sexual liberation, they said that everything was fine — what was I talking about? Now if I raise questions, many of them speak differently. Although they still live like libertines, it's getting old. They are beginning to sound like the children of third-generation Maoists.

A young man remarked in one of my classes that he longed to get married and stay married to the same woman forever, but because his own parents hadn't been able to manage it, he was afraid to get married at all. Women show signs of avoidance too, but in a more conflicted way. According to a survey commissioned by the Independent Women's Forum, Norval Glenn and Elizabeth Marquardt of the Institute for American Values found that 83 percent of college women say marriage is a very important goal for them. Yet 40 percent of them engage in "hooking up" — physical encounters (commonly oral sex) without any expectation of relationship whatsoever.

Do you hear a little cognitive dissonance there? Can you think of a sexual behavior less likely to get you into marriage? The ideology of hooking up says that sex is merely release or recreation. You have some friends for friendship and you have other friends just for hooking up — they're called "friends with benefits." What your body does is unrelated to your heart.

Don't believe it. The same survey reports that hooking up commonly takes place when both participants are drinking or drunk, and it's not hard to guess the reason why: After a certain amount of this, you may need to get drunk to go through with it.

Not Designed for It
The fact is that we aren't designed for hooking up. Our hearts and bodies are designed to work together. Don't we already know that?

In "Friends, Friends with Benefits, and the Benefits of the Local Mall," a New York Times Magazine writer who interviewed teenagers who hook up supplies a telling anecdote. The girl Melissa tells him, "I have my friends for my emotional needs, so I don't need that from the guy I'm having sex with." Yet on the day of the interview, "Melissa was in a foul mood. Her 'friend with benefits' had just broken up with her. 'How is that even possible?' she said, sitting, shoulders slumped, in a booth at a diner. 'The point of having a friend with benefits is that you won't get broken up with, you won't get hurt.'"

But let there be no mistake: When I say we aren't designed for this, I'm also speaking of males. A woman may be more likely to cry the next morning; it's not so easy to sleep with a man who won't even call you back. But a man pays a price too. He probably thinks he can instrumentalize his relationships with women in general, yet remain capable of romantic intimacy when the right woman comes along. Sorry, fellow. That's not how it works.

Sex is like applying adhesive tape; promiscuity is like ripping the tape off again. If you rip it off, rip it off, rip it off, eventually the tape can't stick anymore. This probably contributes to an even wider social problem that might be called the Peter Pan syndrome. Men in their forties with children in their twenties talk like boys in their teens. "I still don't feel like a grown-up," they say. They don't even call themselves men — just "guys."

Now, in a roundabout sort of way, I've just introduced you to the concept of natural law. Although the natural-law tradition is unfamiliar to most people today, it has been the main axis of Western ethical thought for 23 centuries, and in fact it is experiencing a renaissance.

Now, in a roundabout sort of way, I've just introduced you to the concept of natural law. Although the natural-law tradition is unfamiliar to most people today, it has been the main axis of Western ethical thought for 23 centuries, and in fact it is experiencing a renaissance.

The hinge concept is design. I said that we're not designed for hooking up, that we're designed for our bodies and hearts to work together. We human beings really do have a design, and I mean that literally — not just a biological design, but an emotional, intellectual, and spiritual design. The human design is the meaning of the ancient expression "human nature." Some ways of living comport with our design. Others don't.

Read More: http://catholiceducation.org/articles/sexuality/se0125.html

Has the Sexual Revolution Been Good for Women? No

By MARY EBERSTADT

Spring came early to most of the 50 states this year—and with it, at least in the political fields, the usual crop of mixed truths, untruths, and wildly growing falsehoods. Let's yank up one of those weeds for a little inspection: the idea that a national "war on women" is afoot.

Myth No. 1: The "war on women" consists of tyrannical men arrayed against oppressed but pluckily united women.It's an ideological whopper that demands more scrutiny than it has so far gotten, because underneath it are solid rocks of myth concerning what are called the "social issues." Let's turn over a few of these to see what facts they hide.

In the first place, womankind, bless her fickle heart, is not exactly united on…anything.

Public opinion polls show women to be roughly evenly divided on the question of abortion. This same diversity of opinion was also manifest in the arguments over the proposed new federal mandate forcing employers to pay for birth control, including abortifacients.

© Charles Gatewood/The Image Works

It seems difficult to argue that the results of the revolution have been a slam-dunk for happiness.

Over 20,000 women, from all walks of life, signed an open letter to President Barack Obama and Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius objecting to the federal mandate. Co-written by lawyers Helen Alvare and Kim Daniels, that letter alone answered the taunting question of supporters of the measure, "Where are the women?" The answer: in impressive numbers on the opposite side of the dispute.

Other leaders hailing from the XX side of the chromosome gap also took public stands against the mandate, including politicians, pundits, professors, editors and authors who don't seem to have gotten the message that they are victims in all this. They considered the unexpected federal fiat a violation of religious liberty and individual conscience, but they didn't think these wrongs had anything to do with themselves qua women. Many men shared their view.

Myth No. 2: If it weren't for the Catholic Church, no one would be talking about contraception anyway.

It is not only a series of popes but also a number of prominent secular thinkers who believe that the birth-control pill has been one of the major milestones in human history—a diverse group that runs from public intellectuals of a previous generation like Walter Lippmann to such contemporary scholars as Francis Fukuyama and Robert Putnam. As many pundits had occasion to observe in 2010, the 50th anniversary of the pill, it is hard to think of anything else that has changed life so quickly and dramatically for so many.

In other words, this isn't just a Catholic thing. In severing sex from procreation, humankind set into motion forces that have by now shaped and reshaped almost every aspect of life in the Western world. Families are smaller, birthrates have dropped, divorce and out-of-wedlock births have soared. Demography has now even started to work against the modern welfare state, which has become harder to sustain as fewer children have been produced to replace aging parents.

The sexual revolution has transformed economics, culture and law. Witness this week's Supreme Court case, in which the question at hand is whether an individual's Social Security survivor benefits belong to children conceived with his sperm months after he died.

Even on the religious playing field, this isn't just a Catholic thing. Christian teaching against artificial contraception dates back to the earliest Church fathers confronting pagan Rome. Christians remained united on that teaching until relatively recently—1930, to be exact, which is the year that the Anglican Communion made its first, carefully circumscribed exceptions to the rule. Orthodox Jews, Mormons and some traditionalist Protestants have also pondered the issue and ended up proscribing or limiting contraception in different circumstances.

Which brings us to Myth No. 3: The "social issues" are unwanted artifacts of a primitive religious past that will eventually just fade away.

To the contrary. What we know as the "social issues"—abortion, gay marriage and the rest—are here to stay, and we'll be dealing with them for generations to come. In fact, one might even predict that these vexing issues will outlast almost every other controversy burning today.

That's because they cannot be resolved until the legacy of the sexual revolution has been settled in the Western mind—and this certainly includes the question of whether it has been a good thing or a bad thing. Judging by the state of much current commentary, we've only just begun down that road.

This brings us to Myth No. 4, which is perhaps the most interesting one of all: The sexual revolution has made women happier.

Granted, happiness is a personal, imponderable thing. But if the sexual revolution has really made women as happy as feminists say, a few elementary questions beg to be answered.

Why do the pages of our tonier magazines brim with mournful titles like "The Case for Settling" and "The End of Men"? Why do websites run by and for women focus so much on men who won't grow up, and ooze such despair about relations between the sexes?

Why do so many accomplished women simply give up these days and decide to have children on their own, sometimes using anonymous sperm donors, thus creating the world's first purposely fatherless children? What of the fact, widely reported earlier this week, that 26% of American women are on some kind of mental-health medication for anxiety and depression and related problems?

Or how about what is known in sociology as "the paradox of declining female happiness"? Using 35 years of data from the General Social Survey, two Wharton School economists, Betsey Stevenson and Justin Wolfers, made the case in 2009 that women's happiness appeared to be declining over time despite their advances in the work force and education.

The authors noted that women (and men) showed declining happiness during the years studied. Though they were careful not to draw conclusions from their data, is it not reasonable to think that at least some of that discontent comes from the feeling that the grass is greener elsewhere—a feeling made plausible by the sexual revolution?

However one looks at the situation, it seems difficult to argue that the results of the revolution have been a slam-dunk for happiness.

It is always hard to disentangle the weeds from the plants in such a large field. But if the sexual revolution has made women so happy, we can at least ask what it would look like for them to be unhappy. A broader inquiry might yield some results worth thinking about, in contrast to the shortsighted political theatrics over a supposed "war on women."

—Mrs. Eberstadt, a research fellow at the Hoover Institution and a consulting editor to Policy Review, is the author of a new book, "Adam and Eve After the Pill: Paradoxes of the Sexual Revolution."

Privatizing Marriage Is Impossible

by Jennifer Roback Morse

April 2, 2012

http://www.thepublicdiscourse.com/2012/04/5069

We cannot escape the fact that marriage is an intrinsically public institution. We can’t avoid making collective decisions about its meaning and purpose. If we don’t do it explicitly, we will end up doing it implicitly.

As a libertarian myself, I have been quite disappointed that the “default” libertarian position on marriage has become little more than a sound-bite: “Let’s get the state out of the marriage business.” With all due respect, this position is unsound.

I will not be able to respond to this sound-bite with another sound-bite. The issues surrounding marriage are too deep. But I am not deterred from trying to persuade thoughtful readers who are up to the task of following a complex and unconventional argument wherever the search for truth may lead.

I make three points in this series of articles. First, in today’s article, I show that it is not possible to privatize marriage. Second, in tomorrow’s article, I show that the attempt to privatize marriage will not result in an increase in freedom, but will actually increase the role of the state. Finally, in the third article, I show that attempting to privatize marriage will perpetrate great injustices to children. Any of these reasons is sufficient to put an end to the “get the government out of the marriage business” mantra. All three of these reasons taken together form a compelling case for absolutely opposing the redefinition of marriage and for working tirelessly to create a robust cultural norm of one man, one woman, for life.

“Get the government out of the marriage business,” or its close cousin, “Leave it to the churches,” is a superficially appealing slogan. When I hear this, I often get the feeling that it is a way of avoiding the unpleasant dispute currently raging over the proper definition of marriage. I sense that its proponents are hoping we can remove this whole contentious topic from the public square and put it into the private sector. Each person or group can have its own version of marriage. The state, with its powerful coercive instruments, need never get involved in resolving this seemingly impossible stalemate.

While I understand this impulse, I believe it is fundamentally misguided. Taking a stand on the purpose and meaning of marriage is unavoidable. Here is why.

Marriage is society’s primary institutional arrangement that defines parenthood. Marriage attaches mothers and fathers to their children and to one another. A woman’s husband is presumed to be the father of any children she bears during the life of their union. These two people are the legally recognized parents of this child, and no one else is. The grandparents are not; the former boyfriend is not; the nanny who spends all day with the kids is not. These two hold their parental rights against all other competing claimants. This is an intrinsically social, public function of marriage that cannot be privatized.

You might reply, “Dr. Morse, your understanding of marriage is all about parenthood, and not about marriage itself. Not every marriage has children, after all.” And it is perfectly true: not every marriage has children. But every child has parents. This objection stands marriage on its head by looking at it purely from the adult’s perspective, instead of the child’s. The fact that this objection is so common shows how far we have strayed from understanding the public purpose of marriage, as opposed to the many private reasons that people have for getting married.

If no children were ever involved, adult sexual relationships simply wouldn’t be any of the state’s business. What we now call marriage would be nothing more than a government registry of friendships. If that’s all there were to marriage, privatizing it wouldn’t be a big deal. But if there were literally nothing more to marriage than a government registry of friendships, we would not observe an institution like marriage in every known society.

Perhaps libertarians might concede that marriage attaches children to their natural biological parents. They might even agree that this is a fine and necessary thing—and then try to imagine that the institution now known as marriage could be replaced by private agreements among prospective parents. I will argue later that this policy will inflict serious injustices on children. For now, I want to show that it is an illusion to think that these contracts can dispense with any and all state involvement.

Disputes that arise between the contracting parties must be resolved by an overarching legal authority. Let’s face it: that overarching legal authority always will be some agency of the government. “Getting the government out of the marriage business” amounts to refusing to define marriage on the front end. But the state will end up being involved in defining what counts as a valid marriage or parenting contract, on the back end, as it resolves disputes. We cannot escape this kind of state involvement.

No-fault divorce provides an analogy. No-fault divorce allows one party to end the marriage bond for any reason or no reason. In effect, the state redefined marriage by removing the presumption of permanence. Marriage became a temporary arrangement rather than a permanent union of a man and a woman. No-fault divorce was supposed to increase personal freedom.

But the result of this legal change has been state involvement in the minutiae of family life, as it resolves disputes over custody, visitation, and child support. Family courts decide where children go to school, or to church. I’ve even heard of a family court judge choosing a teenaged-girl’s prom dress because the divorced parents couldn’t resolve the issue.

Married spouses disagree with each other over all sorts of issues, of course. But it is literally unthinkable that the state would be involved in resolving these kinds of disputes in an intact marriage. One might have thought that no-fault divorce would “get the government out of the divorce business.” In fact, it did no such thing. The government got out of the front end of deciding what counted as a valid reason for divorce. But the government reappeared on the back end, in a far more intrusive form, as it decides how to divide family assets and resolve post-divorce conflicts.

Furthermore, “leaving marriage to the churches” is a fantasy. At this point in history, churches are not the ultimate legal authority for anything. There is exactly zero chance that the state will permit religious law to be the legal authority for its members on issues such as custody, visitation, and child support. In fact, the “Lifestyle Left” has spent considerable energy marginalizing the churches, reducing even further their ability to shape the behavior of their members and influence the wider society. They’ve done this, I might add, with scarcely a peep of protest from libertarians.

Even if the state did grant churches binding legal authority over their own members, the state would still be drawn into disputes between people in mixed religious marriages, as well as people of no religion at all. Thus, what appears to be “leaving it to the churches” will be in fact no such thing.

The state will end up shaping people’s behavior by how it chooses to resolve the disputes that will inevitably arise.

Finally, getting the government out of the business of giving out marriage licenses does not mean that the government will be completely neutral with respect to kinds of relationships. The government is already deeply involved in many aspects of human life that affect people’s decisions of what kind of relationship to be in. For instance, government’s policies regarding welfare, health care, and housing have contributed to the near-disappearance of marriage from the lower classes, not only in America, but throughout the industrialized world.

Miss Octo-Mom, to take a specific example, thought it was in her interest to give birth to fourteen children without ever even having a relationship with a man, much less being married to one. Surely government policies had something to do with her decision-making. Agencies of the state provided her with income support, free medical care, the use of a stranger’s sperm, as well as legal assurance that said sperm donor would never show up and bother her. Every one of these policies has implied views about marriage. If libertarians ever succeed in getting the government out of all of these areas of life, maybe we can talk about making the government “neutral” with respect to marriage. Until then, forget it.

In short, the idea that we can get the government out of the marriage business in the early twenty-first century is an illusion. Marriage performs an irreducibly public function, of attaching mothers and fathers to their children and to one another. Given the current scope and size of the government’s activities, the state cannot be completely neutral with respect to different types of relationships.

We simply cannot escape the fact that marriage is an intrinsically public institution. We can’t avoid making collective decisions about its meaning and purpose. If we don’t do it explicitly, we will end up doing it implicitly. “Privatizing marriage” is impossible. Adopting this position on the marriage issue as an attempt to avoid conflict is unworthy of thoughtful adults.

But the attempt to do the impossible is not harmless. In my next article, I will show that “getting the government out of the marriage business” will actually amount to an increase in the size and scope of the government.

Jennifer Roback Morse, Ph.D., is the Founder and President of the Ruth Institute, a project of the National Organization for Marriage Education Fund.  She is the author of Love and Economics: It Takes a Family to Raise a Village, available in paperback and digitally at the Ruth Institute store.