Gay Marriage and Traditional Values

By Jim Turner

“Bush has condemned the Massachusetts high court for tampering with the ‘traditional values’ enshrined in the Constitution. But we should be grateful for such tampering, or we would still have slavery and women still would not be allowed to vote,” said Robert Scheer in the Los Angeles Times on May 18.

Neither right-wing Bush nor left-wing Scheer gets it right. While attacking gay marriage as an assault on “traditional values,” Bush seeks to substitute compulsion and authority for the traditional American values of liberty, independence and freedom enshrined in the US and all state constitutions. He should be held to account for urging departure from these traditional values.
The values he so ardently seeks to express are absent from the US and state constitutions, which is why he and his allies on this issue must seek and urge that the constitution be amended.

Slavery and gender disparity were eliminated by constitutional amendments. Only one amendment to the US constriction, the 18th banning the sale and use of alcohol, attempted to role back freedom. It lasted fourteen years before being repealed. An emboldened organized crime legacy remained in its wake. Mother nature dislikes meddling with freedom. We should be glad when the courts insist on enforcing freedom’s values.

On the issue of intimate life arrangements, as the US Supreme Court has emphatically said, the free liberal values of personal expression and independence from authority are what truly express the American tradition.

Jim Turner is a Contributing Editor to the Free Liberal and a member of the Board of Directors of the Center for Liberty and Community.