The Republican-Friendly Argument for Marriage Equality

With the gay marriage issue heating up again and many Republicans switching sides in favor of marriage equality, there are still many conservatives out there who are against it. Most liberal Democrats simply accuse opponents of gay marriage of being religious bigots, which really does nothing to bridge the gap between the ideologies of the left and right. As a Libertarian who straddles both sides, I'll attempt to raise a few points about marriage equality... in a way the right might be able to understand a little better.

The biggest argument against marriage equality I've heard is the "re-defining of marriage" argument. According to Leviticus, homosexuality is an abomination. I won't dispute that. And, since marriage is a sanctuous institution in Judeo-Christian religions, many Christians feel this is a government imposition on religion to involve what is seen as an "abomination" onto the sanctity of marriage. In other words, followers of religions who are opposed to homosexuality don't wish to have the government force them to base something as holy as marriage on what God considers an "abomination."

But, the truth is, the "marriage equality" debate really has little to do with actual marriage. In most cases, the purpose of marriage is to engage in an official commitment to each other and their community in the witness of whatever God they worship, if any. Whether or not a marriage is actually recognized by the government has little to do with the religious aspect of marriage or the validity of the actual commitment.

The "definition of marriage" is essentially dependent on the parties involved. In Christianity, the Bible speaks against homosexuality. I won't deny this because I speak English and I can read. Thus, followers of the Bible may disapprove and even disallow same-sex marriages. However, in many other religions, homosexuality is not discouraged. Same-sex marriage in those particular religions is welcomed, and is even taking place. Marriage is an ancient tradition that is practiced by Buddhists, Hindus, Taoists and even Agnostics and Atheists. Even in some sects of Christianity, Judaism and Islam, same-sex marriages are recognized and allowed even though their texts may speak against it.

This means, gay marriage is already happening. If I'm a part of a religion that considers marriage as just tossing stones in a river and doing a silly dance, then under our tradition and in our community, we're married. Whether or not the government recognizes it is irrelevant. If God feels my actions are an abomination and becomes angry, the damage has most likely already been done. The actual debate over gay marriage deals with legal recognition.

True marriage equality would be if the government remained transparent and allowed marriage to be "defined" simply by those who participate in it. Government playing a role in marriage causes a lot of problems. Far too often, the legal benefits of marriage lead to marriages that take place for the wrong reasons. Often the government considers the legal validity of a union when ruling on private disputes rather than the actual factors at hand. Courts often look at marriage as a factor when ruling over things like child custody and immigration, which often forces people into a marriage they later regret. Often, this leads to divorces, which also goes against many religions including Christianity. Not to mention, if “marriage” is legally defined by a religious doctrine, and legal rulings are being determined by that, we’re basically rewarding people for conforming to theology rather than independent virtue.

However, if our government is going to offer benefits and restrictions based on private civil commitments like marriage, they have a constitutional obligation to offer the same benefits and restrictions across the board. Thus, the debate isn't about the "definition of marriage (which is subjective and is not dependent on law)," it's about the constitutional distribution of government benefit. If government should not recognize same sex marriage, it should not recognize any marriage (which should actually be the platform of anyone who is small-government who respected private religious institution). But, if government should offer benefits to "traditional marriage," it should offer benefits to any marriage. Either way, private civil unions should be treated equally under the law.

Another common argument I hear is the speculation that, simply allowing same-sex couples to be legally recognized would create a slippery slope that would lead to civil law imposing unwelcome morals on private religious institutions. Meaning, if we allow gay marriage, the government will forbid churches from denying same-sex couples.

Though unlikely, I wouldn't necessarily count this possibility out. I am very much aware that there is a fringe group of nut-jobs to the far left who believe that progressive values are so important that they would result to a sort of neo-fascism to impose those value onto the public despite individual convictions.

However, I wouldn't say this speculation necessitates a complete denial of same-sex couples. Currently, churches are well within' their legal right to decide who they will marry despite what the government does or doesn't consider acceptable. For instance, many churches deny couples who engage in pre-marital relations, have children out of wedlock, are not baptized, and a whole myriad of other reasons that are simply dependant on the values of the church in question. This is within' their legal constitutional right despite the legal recognition of these marriages. The so-called "separation of church and state" goes both ways. Religion should, in no way, provide a basis for legislation, nor should law dictate the practices of independent religious institutions. It's that simple.

Even if we do see a push by the far left to force churches to allow same-sex couples to marry, that is a separate fight that shouldn't restrict the very legal recognition of couples who engage in marriage under whatever their private convictions are. If two people want to engage in whatever they feel like marriage is, what right would the government of a "free society" have to impose outside convictions on them? The issue is not whether or not people are "married" according to your opinion of what you think marriage "should be," the issue is whether or not the government should or shouldn’t be treating everyone with the same opportunities despite their convictions and personal assemblies. We cringe at the idea of foreign invaders persecuting us for not following their God, let's not do the same to our own people. Republicans are the party of individual responsibility. Allow individuals to decide what marriage is and what it entails... not the state.

Why I Hate Trader Joe's

So, my wife loves Trader Joe's. Every now and then she tricks me into pushing the cart around with her on a Saturday while she picks out TJ's poor excuses for substitutes of good food, and every single time I find myself walking around pouting and mumbling to myself about how much the store and its clientele pisses me off.

First off, the store itself is just stupid. Now, I don't make it a hobby to go on cross-country tours of stores that I hate, so it's totally possible that other TJ's have layouts like normal Earthling grocery stores. But, I have a feeling most of them are just like the one in my neighborhood. For instance, in a normal grocery store, you go through the checkout line by putting your groceries on a conveyor belt. But, at TJ's, they have this special little system where you put your cart on one side of the counter and stand in line on the other side. The clerk then pulls your cart, rings up your stuff, bags it and puts it back in the cart. Of course, that raises a problem if you have a purse or a child or something else you want to leave in the cart so you can pay for your items without a huge pain in the neck. But, I guess for some people, having to hold your child and your purse and whatever else while you're trying to pay for groceries is so much better than just having conveyor belts at the registers like normal grocery stores. Now, the check-out setup is actually a very small, trivial complaint, but it's indicative of a bigger issue I have with the store.

The reason they've implemented this fish-brained check-out process is the same reason they have fake wood paneling all over the store and call themselves "Trader Joe's." See, TJ's is geared towards the young, yuppie, middle-class, do-good, granola and tofu hipsters who stop off after their Zumba and spin classes for organic broccoli and guilt-free, bootleg Reese's Cups. In order to attract that crowd, Trader Joe's appeals to their false sense of "conscious living" by maintaining this image of "small-town freshness." This is accomplished by designing the stores to subconsciously fool these pretentious, idiot morons into thinking that there's actually some poor, average-Joe farmer in the next town who grows all this food fresh and carts it over to the store in the bed of his beat-up truck... along with all the professionally packaged rip-off Oreos. They're trying to portray the image that, while they carry the same type of food as Safeway or Kroger, THEIR products somehow come with the wholesome freshness of a local fruit stand. They even call themselves "your neighborhood grocery store." That way these hipster, know-it-all snobs can shop there with the false sense that they aren't contributing to anything that has to do with economic success. So, while the rest of us sheep go to Food Lion or Giant or whatever store is running double coupons, these people go out of their way to shop at fancy-pants Trader Joe's so that they can reinforce their elitist attitudes by not lowering themselves to our level.

Maintaining this fake "small-town" image necessitates a trust between TJ's and the community where customers can assume that, if they buy stuff at Trader Joe's, it isn't coming from some huge corporate conglomerate. Developing a repertoire with superficial people necessitates a facade that ensures that you can maintain what makes those people feel good about themselves. So, to keep up this image of "neighborhood freshness," they have to eliminate every iota of modernization or industrialism or any other sign at all that they're successful. And apparently, as long as you have wood paneling all over your store and some generic, non-corporate sounding name like "Trader Joe's," you're reinforcing this image that you're just a local rinky-dink store that doesn't even have conveyor belts at the register. This way, people will completely ignore the fact that you have 395 stores nationwide and gross $8.5 million/year.

Now, this isn't to say that I'm against Organic foods or being health-conscious or what-have-you. There's nothing wrong with buying all organic stuff or fat-free or low-calorie... or just not buying junk food at all (imagine that). I just feel it's a little condescending for a huge, national grocer to masquerade as some local neighborhood market to sucker me into thinking that, if I shop at their store to buy THEIR products, I'm somehow a better person. Like, I can be certain that the food at Trader Joe's is better because, you can't just get Jiff or Peter Pan at TJ's, you can only get their special little organic hippie peanut butter... and that's your ONLY option. They're not going to try to tempt you with evil, corporate food.

Because, it wouldn't be the same if Trader Joe's just made healthy food and sold it in a Safeway, or if they had their own grocery store where they sold other brands right next to theirs... they have to open a special little store for these special little hipster nitwits so they can buy their special little food that doesn't have to share shelf space with the big, bad, evil, corporate poison.

This is usually the point in the Trader Joe's trip where I can't help but to look around at all the people who are contributing to this kind of ridiculousness, and start mumbling to myself and getting irritated. Most of these assholes fall in one of 2 categories. They're either a health-conscious mother of two who watches too much Dr. Oz, or a hipster who thinks he's better than everyone else by (God forbid) not "lowering himself" to buying food at a Safeway like us commoners. You can even see the false sense of pride on their idiot faces as they walk around the store. It's like, they think they're doing such a good thing they can hardly stand themselves. They're so special and organic and proud of the fact that they're above the evil temptation of Wal Mart. It isn't that we just don't like Trader Joe's' disgusting crap or their pretentious little facade, it's that we're stupid and have no will. I can not stand it when someone tries to get me to eat a "healthy version" of something I like.  Why would I want to eat your crappy Trader Joe's M&M's rip-offs when I can just buy REAL M&M's from the store that sells the food that I like?  You don't have to trick me into eating healthy food by dolling it up for me.  I'm not 6 years old.  I mean, there's a point where you cross the line between "being health conscious" and "going out of your way to show everyone how great you are."

Let's face it. The difference between a normal healthy person and an elitist hipster dufus is their pretentious attitude. If you're a pretentious hipster, you can't feel good about eating healthy unless every item in your cupboard has the name "Trader Joe's" on it. "I got it at Shoppers" is just not in these people's vocabulary.  They wouldn't be caught dead contributing to big, bad, evil corporations like Coke or Pepsi. Those big evil companies hog all the wealth in this country! Instead, they go to the store where the only products they can get are Trader Joe's products made by the same Trader Joe's people who opened the Trader Joe's store they're in. That doesn’t contribute to monopolism at all. It's much better to give ALL your grocery budget to this ONE company who bullshits you into thinking you're some great, special person because you shop at a quaint little neighborhood grocery stand called Trader Joe's who is so alternative and conscious they don't even have conveyor belts on their registers... and happens to have $8.5 million/year in revenue.