Shall We “Privatize” Marriage & Everything Else?

Americans love their freedoms: free speech, freedom of religion, freedom of expression, free enterprise. In all these cases, to have freedom is to have the state butt out. What is not the state’s jurisdiction is private.

Privatization is on the march. We have certain prisons that are run by private entrepreneurs. For several decades, the government has been de-regulating corporations — i.e., making them more private. When America invaded Iraq, the U.S. immediately set about privatizing state enterprises. President Bush is trying to introduce privatization into Social Security. The thrice-married Newt Gingrich wants to privatize the National Zoo in D.C. There has been a persistent effort to privatize the Post Office. Presumably, privatization is a good thing.

So then, what’s wrong with privatizing homosexuality? Until 1961, all 50 states outlawed homosexuality. Since then, sodomy laws have been stricken down, and now homosexual sex has been privatized.

The state has regulated marriage, stating that it must be between a man and a woman. What homosexuals and liberals are asking for is for the state to in essence privatize “marriage.” (Hey, we’ve already privatized divorce via no-fault.)

If privatization is a good thing, what’s wrong with privatizing abortion? That’s what Roe v. Wade did. Were the state to outlaw abortion, we’d have to have bigger government. But the privatizers want to “get the government off people’s backs,” as Ronald Reagan said. Yes, the freedom of unborn babies to be born would be protected, but most Americans would regard this as an abstract concept, and most would regard the outlawing of abortion as a diminishment of freedom. Given that there is disagreement among Americans over the status of a “fetus,” the privatizing argument would favor letting the individual, not the state, decide the significance of the “fetus.”