Libertarian perspectives on LGBT rights
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The libertarian perspective on gay rights has been a topic of debate among libertarians, especially US-Americans. Libertarians endorse many of the major goals of the gay rights movement, for instance deregulation of private sexual conduct. However, they also oppose major goals, including laws prohibiting anti-gay discrimination in the private sector.
Libertarian support for certain goals of major gay rights organizations
A libertarian theory or perspective on gay rights endorses many of the goals of the gay rights movement:
- Repeal of all laws regulating sexual conduct among consenting adults in private (i.e. sodomy laws) and ensuring an equal age of consent.
- End discrimination based on sexual orientation in all government employment, especially in the armed forces.
- End the usage of solication or loitering laws to harass gay people or gay-owned businesses.
- Ensure that a professional license is not revoked on the grounds of sexual orientation.
- Equal government treatment for gay immigrants and equal government protection from true crimes such as murder, rape, theft and assault.
- Libertarians believe that the right of terminally ill people to use medical marijuana to help treat the nausea associated with cancer and AIDS medications is also an important issue for gay people. A gay libertarian named Peter McWilliams is often seen as a martyr to this particular cause.
- Some libertarians support legalization of same-sex marital contracts, while others support ending government definition of marriage or respect of marriage entirely.
- Some libertarians support allowing gay couples to adopt and have custody of children.
This has led to the rise of some libertarian organizations for gay rights such as the Gays and Lesbians for Individual Liberty, the defunct Libertarians for Gay and Lesbian Concerns and the Outright Libertarians. These organizations seek to persuade gay people that libertarianism or classical liberalism or Objectivism is the best perspective for the gay rights movement as opposed to modern liberalism or socialism.
In response, some have offered several reasons why they feel that libertarians should not be trusted to promote gay rights. The first thing they point to is where the libertarian movement sharply disagrees with the gay rights goals of the political Left.
Libertarian opposition to certain goals of major gay rights organizations
- Libertarians oppose all laws prohibiting private sector discrimination. They feel such laws violate individuals rights. Thus, libertarians argue that private employers have the right to discriminate on grounds of race, ethnicity, religious affiliation or sexual orientation if they so desire.
- Libertarians support the right of the Boy Scouts of America and any other private organizations, businesses and clubs to hire/fire/include/exclude whom they desire. The Gays and Lesbians for Individual Liberty filed an amicus brief for the Boy Scouts of America before the United States Supreme Court in 2001.
- Libertarians oppose any government funding for the arts and thus no more National Endowment for the Arts. [1]
- Libertarians oppose all hate crime legislation and generally oppose any federal role in law enforcement.
- Libertarians oppose public education and feel that parents have every right to send their children to an ex-gay camp, or to a school that teaches discrimination against gays, unless such camps or schools engage in physical abuse of the children [2].
- Some quasi-libertarians (such as Ron Paul, who has been a frequent Republican Party member) oppose legalization of same-sex marital contracts, while others favor ending government definition of marriage or respect of marriage entirely and support allowing churches to decide whom they will marry, but neither is a position of the Libertarian Party and only the latter position can be said to typify the mainstream of libertarian thinking.
- Some self-identified libertarians oppose allowing gay couples to adopt and have custody of childrens, while some others oppose ending the ban on openly gay servicemen and women in the armed forces, but this is in not a position of the Libertarian Party or of mainstream libertarian thought.
Conservative-Libertarian Connection
In the United States of America, critics of the libertarian perspective on gay rights often argue that libertarians are right-wing and thus cannot be trusted to promote even the gay rights that they actually support. This criticism cites the close relations that many American libertarians have to the conservative movement and the ease that many gay Republicans have in slumming within libertarian circles.
It is no secret that libertarians can find common ground with conservatives and thus to a large extent the Republican Party on issues such as the Second Amendment, taxation, free markets and even states' rights. Both conservatives and libertarians talk a similar political language that places a high value on limited government, personal responsibility, free markets and disdain for anything that they consider to be socialism or political correctness. This is why there is an active libertarian Republican organization called the Republican Liberty Caucus, and why the only libertarian elected to the United States Congress is Ron Paul, the Republican from Texas. Critics of the libertarian perspective on gay rights often point to this conservative-libertarian alliance as proof that libertarians are leery of standing up to the religious right, since that would run the risk of breaking their coalition.
Gay Republicans and Libertarians
Gay Republicans agree with the Republican Party on issues of taxation, trade and foreign policy, and gun control. Libertarianism has provided a theoretical framework for gay Republicans to advocate a gay rights movement that they feel should be closely aligned with a belief (shared by conservatives and libertarians) in lower taxes, free markets, and limited government. Hence many gay Republicans such as Andrew Sullivan and organizations such as the Log Cabin Republicans and the Independent Gay Forum address gay rights from a perspective that is clearly libertarian in character and often differs from how gay liberals and moderates view gay rights; for instance, gay Republicans, such as the writers at the Independent Gay Forum, endorsed the libertarian position that the Boy Scouts of America should be free to exclude gay men as scouts and scoutmasters. Gay Republicans have also endorsed the libertarian perspective in opposing hate crime legislation.
The connection is not always smooth as the more orthodox gay libertarians affiliated with the Gays and Lesbians for Individual Liberty and the Outright Libertarians accuse gay Republicans of selectively invoking a libertarian perspective in an effort to move their own party into a more socially libertarian position, and not to support the Libertarian Party or advocate election law reforms (especially ballot access law reforms) that would help the Libertarian Party be a viable alternative to the two major political parties.
Internal debate among libertarians
On certain gay rights issues Libertarians have been unsure as to what their official position should be and how much pressure they should put on Libertarian candidates to support these positions.
In 1992 conservative activists in Colorado got Amendment 2 on the statewide ballot that would have prohibited the local or state government from passing any sort of civil rights legislation, including protection for gays. As this amendment would have included the private and public sector, many Colorado libertarians were unsure what their position should be and in the end the Colorado Libertarian Party was unable to take any position on this amendment that was struck down by the United States Supreme Court in 1996.
In 2000 the Vermont Supreme Court ordered the state to provide civil unions for gay couples as an alternative to the legalization of gay marriage. The court ruling prompted the lone libertarian legislator in Vermont to side with the conservatives that made an unsuccessful attempt to impeach the justices for their ruling. The Vermont Libertarian Party endorsed civil unions and revoked their previous endorsement of the state legislator who went on to run for office as a Republican. Libertarians debate if a limited government would provide any sort of legal protection to a marriage, and if so there is debate as to how that should apply to gay couples.
In 2001 California voters passed a ballot measure that defined marriage as a union between one man and one woman. The California Libertarian Party officially opposed the ballot initiative, but critics noted that many Libertarians running for office in California supported the ballot measure and did not get any sanctions from the state party as had happened in Vermont.
External links
- Official Libertarian Party position on LGBT equality
- LBGT libertarians
- Gays and Lesbians for Individual Liberty [5]
- Outright Libertarians [6]
- Libertarians for Gay and Lesbian Concerns 1981 - 1987[7]
- Critics of The Libertarian Perspective on Gay Rights
- "Libertarians and Gay Activists" By Joy Johnston 2001 [8]
- Gay Republicans That Invoke Libertarian Principles