I thank you, but alas, such praise is not deserved. While I stand behind that post, it is, technically, an ugly and embarrassing misfire: I accidentally mixed issues. My only shred of redemption is that standards such as we find in
and other states where unmarried couples cannot adopt will eventually run the issue through the territory I outlined.
I did want to put in two cents about this part. (And, for once, I think it is actually
• If we apply Lysander Spooner's declaration that--
... it is impossible that a government should have any rights, except such as the individuals composing it had previously had, as individuals. They could not delegate to a government any rights which they did not themselves possess. They could not contribute to the government any rights, except such as they themselves possessed as individuals.
Spooner, "Vices", XII
--we can establish that
anyone has a basic right to undertake the care of another's progeny if circumstances bring the situation to require or request it. That is, if a human being can look to a brother, a friend, a member of the tribe, and entrust on their deathbed the wellbeing of the child to that other, then mere sexual orientation is no real barrier to that transfer of authority.
• To the other, if we go with the U.S. Constitution (which contains one facet of the debate inasmuch as there is a political question among Americans), either everybody has the right, or nobody has the right. If nobody has the right, it's because marriage and adoption are not specifically outlined in the Constitution. (This reflects a conservative argument that there is no constitutional right to abortion, to sodomy, &c.) If everybody has the right, it is because rational reasons can be construed for
some people, and Equal Protection extends that principle to all Americans. To take marriage as an example, there is no constitutional right to marriage until we look at the natural consequences. You
do have the right to religious expression, and in that religious expression is the demand of marriage and fidelity. Marriage was never enumerated in the Constitution because nobody stopped to think about it. At the same time, though, the old tradition of selecting your daughter's mate, or even buying one for her, doesn't fly under the Constitution, so it has come about that your daughter is expected to marry someone who makes her happy and secure. As you cannot under the Constitution force another to procreate, reserving marriage to procreation is merely a religious sentiment. When we come down to it, marrying for happiness and security is all there really is, and the government cannot hold gender as an obstacle to happiness. Liberty and the pursuit of happiness are part of the reason these United States exist (
cf.
Declaration of Independence). Furthermore, the purpose of even having a Supreme Law of the Land (e.g.
U.S. Constitution) includes the intentions to "establish justice", "promote the general welfare", and "secure the blessings of liberty". If the government has any business recognizing any contract between two people, it cannot make gender a barrier. As to adoption, I again invoke Michigan and other states that won't allow unmarried couples to adopt.
In either case, a government empowered by the people to regulate is obliged to do so rationally. While we can say the right of
anyone can be limited according to governmental obligations to the general welfare, &c., those limitations must have some reasonable foundation. Neither basic gender discrimination nor bigoted presumptions about gays, alone or in tandem, create that rational basis.
Or so says me. So it wasn't exactly two. My bad.