A Fallacy of Anti-Gay Legilslation

Many who argue for Proposition 8 in California and for similar legislation use a common fallacy to establish their position. They say that because many countries with laws friendly to gay "marriage" subsequently pass laws restricting anti-gay speech, such legislation must be a necessary consequent of allowing gay "marriage."

The following is my response to a dear friend of mine who raised this objection. My response includes, in part, my broader view on the subject. I was so impressed with myself- I always sound intelligent when I read my own writing at 2am- that I decided to post it here. It was much easier than rewriting the whole thing as a separate post. Here it is:

I read the article you sent me and I see the correlation between state
acknowledgment of the gay union and the abridgment of free speech. I
still don't see that the logic supports the notion that "If we stop
this discrimination based on sexual orientation, then we will lose our
liberty to speak freely." It's a non sequitor. There are two issues
that I see. The first is the government restriction of gay "marriage".
The second is the assault on liberty to express oneself. While there
is certainly a correlation between the two, but it's not a conditional
relationship. I think there's a very simple explanation for the
correlation.

When a pro-gay majority takes power-like in Canada, Ireland, Sweden,
New Zealand, the Netherlands, etc- they will obviously remove
restrictions on gay "marriage". That much is an obvious first step. At
that point, they have done nothing to restrict anyone's liberty to
express themselves. They do tend to take that step, but this isn't
because they have removed the ban on gay unions. It's because of the
idea that government has a place in restricting expression at all. The
restriction on liberty comes from a government wiling to interfere in
individual's lives; The anti-freedom laws are not a by-product of the removal of "marriage" restrictions, but of having a pro-gay majority who is using
state power to strike at the ideology they don't like.

The mirroring possibility is an anti-gay government who believes in
using state power to restrict liberty by banning gay marriage. When
they are in power, they will enact laws like Prop-8 in California, or
like the late ant-sodomy laws in Texas and other states.

So to stage this logically, we have a pair of bi-conditional
statements. "If the government believes in using state power to
enforce its viewpoint, and if the government is pro-gay, then anti-gay
laws will be removed, and then the government will act against the
viewpoint they disagree with." That's one bi-conditional. The other
is, "If the government believes in using state power to enforce its
viewpoint, and if the government is anti-gay, then there will be laws
prohibiting gay behavior or that assign some sort of punitive
restriction to homosexuality."

Right now America is somewhere between these two polarities. The first
condition is already a reality. Government clearly believes in using
state power to enforce viewpoints. Theirs been a push for that sort of
legislation since the Alien and Sedition Acts. Anti-hate speech
legislation is already the law. The second condition is clearly moving
towards the pro-gay left, at least among the political movers and
shakers.

So why not attack the real issue? Fight the cancer of government
intervention in private life. That would destroy the only real threat
the gay movement poses to the rest of us. Without state intervention
in private life, there is no legislation attacking free expression. If
the Right does that while Conservatives/libertarians/Republicans have the

power, then they claim the mantle of protecting freedom. Everyone will
support that. If we wait till a leftist coalition is in power, then
the Right will simply look like bigots trying to make sure they can criticize those to whom they have an aversion.

Beyond it being the right thing to do, this would also give the right wing access to the large block of gay, fiscally conservative urban votes that currently swear enmity to Republicans. That could
change the whole shape of politics in San Fransisco (imagine, no Nancy
Pelosi!) and in Atlanta.

That doesn't seem like idealistic dreaming to me, but like the only
policy that makes any sense. Boiled down to one thought, my stance
could be this: The solution to too much state power (restricting
anti-homosexual speech), cannot possibly be more state power
(government regulation of marriage). The solution is to abolish state
authority over the individual. Water never saved a drowning man.