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Trump and the Libertarians

6 May

This was published yesterday at Breitbart.  Since it was published, Mary Matalin joined the Libertarian Party and rumors surfaced that Trump might select Rand Paul as his Veep.

Bill Kristol appeared on WMAL’s morning conservative talk radio show, “Mornings on the Mall,” Thursday morning, breaking news that he is trying to find donors for a conservative third party run against Donald Trump if he is nominated as the Republian candidate for president.

Among the liberal Republicans there is also splintering.
Breitbart broke the story earlier this week that Donald Trump’s impending success in winning the GOP nomination was causing fractures in Republican Party delegations, as one DC GOP delegate, Rina Shah, was decertified as a delegate to the GOP nominating convention for saying publicly that she planned to vote for Hillary if Trump was nominated.
The DC Republican Party is something of an outlier.  It’s national committee man and woman, lawyer Bob Kabel and real estate developer Jill Homan, are both (openly) gay, as is its chairman, financial manager Jose Cunningham.  It’s executive director, Patrick Mara, though a happily married heterosexual and new dad, was the first DC candidate some years back to endorse gay marriage over civil unions, and the DC Republican Party supports gay marriage in its platform, and did so before the DC Democratic party did.  (Only the DC and Delaware GOP affiliates supported gay marriage in their platforms before the Supreme Court enacted it).
Perhaps coincidentally, Homan and Mara both fall into another faction of the current GOP:  Homan, a former campaigner for Maryland Governor Bob Ehrlich, the Republican precursor to Larry Hogan, says she describes herself as “trending libertarian,” and Mara has been known to use the “L” word (lower case) to describe his brand of socially liberal, fiscally conservative Republicanism.
The “libertarian wing” of the Republican Party has been having spasms this week over Trump, and google searches for “Libertarian Party” shot up after Trump’s latest win.  Membership applications and donations to the Libertarian Party have doubled since Trump won the Indiana primary, with 100 people joining daily.
Congressman Justin Amash, PACster Matt Kibbe, and former Congressman Ron Paul are libertarian Republicans on the list of those pledged to never support  Trump. Senator Rand Paul doesn’t have any plans to endorse Trump, though Senator Paul has had no difficulty in the past endorsing Mitt Romney or campaigning pointedly for Republican gubernatorial candidates like Ken Cuccinelli in Virginia in 2013, when unusually successful Libertarian Party candidates like Robert Sarvis started polling over 5%.  George Will, who has evolved into a libertarian fellow traveler, blurbing CATO Institute books and speaking to libertarianish groups (as I write this he is introducing transsexual Christian libertarian economic historian Dierdre McCloskey tonight at the American Enterprise Institute), wrote an editorial predicting Trump will cause the GOP to lose both the House and Senate.  Dave Nalle, the former national chairman of the Republican Liberty Caucus, a group of libertarians inside the GOP, has switched parties at least temporarily, and will be a delegate to the Libertarian Party nominating convention in Orlando, May 26-30, where he hopes to help nominate former Republican Governor Gary Johnson, who has been appealing to GOP voters in the #NeverTrump movement.  Asked why he was switching parties, Nalle answered: ““Nominating Johnson gives Republicans who cannot stomach Trump an acceptable option other than Hillary. I blame the party leadership for its failure to support a reasonable alternative to Trump. They would rather let the party die at the hands of bigoted yahoos who do not believe in Republican values than accept the need for serious internal reform and platform changes which would attract new voters to the party. This completes a process of debasement of the party that began when leadership tried to expand the party base by welcoming radical groups which were driven out of the Democratic Party. Trumpism is the price we pay for not realizing that there are principles which are more important than winning elections.”
This week one of the DC GOP’s other 19 delegates (not Ms. Shah), invited me, as a local DC Libertarian, to lunch, to beg me to get Gary Johnson and the Libertarian Party to run an aggressive, but ideologically moderate, campaign to appeal to Republicans who can’t vote for Trump.  This Republican delegate – DC’s delegates are all pledged to Rubio or Kasich  – had also tried to meet with Libertarian Party national director Wes Benedict, but had only managed to get a 15 minute phone pitch, where he made the same points.  When I told my lunch partner I actually thought Libertarian candidates for Congress should appeal to Trump voters (he may not have read my previous “Two Libertarian Cheers for Donald Trump”), he was horrified.  Supporting Donald Trump as a wrecking ball aimed at the political class and as someone who was energizing independents and non-voters is, according to my lunchmate, “anti-intellectual,” because Trump doesn’t always articulate the correct policy proposals.
So the libertarians, in the GOP and in the LP, are of two minds.  Some think Trump will drive many Republican voters to vote for Gary Johnson.  As Zuri Davis, an editorial assistant at the Rand Paulish webzine Rare told her friends, “My vote will be going towards the Libertarian Party in November.”  

But other Libertarians are supporting Trump.  Well known libertarian economist and author Walter Block, started a group of Libertarians for Trump., whose website aggregates pro-Trump articles by libertarianish authors like David Stockman.  The Chief Operating Officer for Libertarians for Trump is Martin Moulton, the 2014 Libertarian Party candidate for D.C. Shadow Representative to Congress, the top Libertarian vote getter in DC’s last election.   Moulton explains his support: “Now that Mr. Trump is the presumptive GOP nominee we seek to support the candidate most likely to win the 2016 presidential election and advance Libertarian policies. If a registered LP candidate does not gain the national attention and votes needed to beat Mrs. Clinton, Mr. Trumps’s consistent calls to reevaluate NATO’s relevance, question interventionist disasters and financial losses, and his promise to audit the Federal Reserve in his first 100 days, make him the most likely 2016 candidate to successful enact and realize Libertarian solutions for all Americans.” 

At this date there are no known delegates to the Libertarian nominating convention supporting Trump.  So unlike the GOP, the LP may not have to take moves to decertify any delegates.

Thomas Peters, National Organization for Marriage activist, tragedy and recovery

30 Jun
I’d blogged/vlogged about a debate between conservatives and libertarians on gay marriage held a few years back by America’s Future Foundation.

Always enjoying a bit of humor, I’d pointed out that the heterosexual conservatives in the debate were prettier than the gay libertarians they were debating.  Particularly Thomas Peters, the owner of the American Papist blog.  (I’m not alone in publishing writing mentioning that Mr. Peters is good looking.)

I was saddened to learn recently that Peters is now largely paralyzed, having had a tragic swimming accident.

I am also told that he continues to lobby on Capitol Hill and reportedly now has more access than ever.  Previously liberal Congressional offices would refuse him entry or make no time to speak to him.  Now they are afraid of someone tweeting a photo of them refusing entry to a disabled person, so everyone takes the meeting.

Read the advice to GOP candidates RedState didn’t want you to see!

30 Jun

The advice given below just got me banned from RedState.

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Libertarian rants (and jokes) on the gay marriage decision this weekend

Or for Republicans – avoiding both sticky subjects and acting like a banana Republican

I started to write a piece a month of two back giving my advice to GOP candidates on the freedom to marry issue.  In particular I was even going to write something for Republicans who were not going to support gay marriage, but wanted to avoid the inevitable media gotcha game that would be (and now has been) laid out to smear them.  I was basically just going to calmly repeat a mantra that they should follow the kind of Grover Norquist/Americans for Tax Reform/ and (until recently) Scott Walker approach of concentrating on fiscal issues.
But I am not a Republican, and no one paid me to formulate this advice, and I had other projects.
It’s not like the Republicans couldn’t figure something out on their own.
Former President George Bush actually offered to officiate a gay wedding.  Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) 90% gave a classy answer to a question about attending a wedding: “If it was somebody in my life that I love and care for, of course I would.”  And Republican media maven Rich Grennel did give them his advice in an essay on “The Conservative Case for Gay Marriage.”
If I had gotten around to writing my advice column for Republican candidates trying to date the unaffiliated voter, I was going to share this anecdote:  One of my long-term, but former (we have been divided by the great polarizer, Barack Obama), best friends, for whom I served as Father of the Bride in an otherwise very Orthodox wedding, asked me to vet her husband-to-be when she was about to get engaged.  She would only marry him if he was OK with her gay best friend.  I was a little taken aback, and asked her why it mattered if he was OK with me, as long as he was good to her.  And she said because if people have the wrong kind of reactions to folks – gays, blacks, Jews, etc. – just because they are gays, blacks, Jews, etc. – it indicates some more fundamental vice you don’t want to have to deal with later down the road.
This is how voters will assess you.  And the media is at the ready to paint you as vile.  You must formulate a plan ahead of time for how not to appear vile if you are not vile.  I will happily vote for Gary Johnson if you do not provide me someone attractive for whom to cast a vote; but I do not really want you to leave me to the fate of the multinational corporation Clinton Inc.
By the way, note that the two candidates eating everyone’s grits, Trump and Sanders, are talking only about JOBS and the economy.  They are of course each talking about them in a more or less racist, nationalist, xenophobic way, but it is the emphasis on the economy getting them attention.  Practice saying that marriage is settled law, or that it is something best left up to the courts, or the legislatures and Congress.  Don’t come across as an Obama style banana republic third world autocrat who lectures Judges about what he will do if they do not interpret the laws to your whims; in fact, when asked about how you would put your foot into the issue as a President, jab at Lord Zero and say that you would not hector the Court as he has.  Don’t say silly things about abolishing the Supreme Court, unless you plan to first discuss abolishing many, many more bureaucracies not mandated by the Constitution, because you’ve gone full Ron Paul and intend to take us back to the Articles of Confederation (hopefully with the Bill of Rights added on).  Ask some libertarians, maybe even some gay ones, at the Reason Foundation or Cato or the Institute for Justice how to formulate both law and commentary about protecting religious liberties under marriage equality (a potentially populist topic) in a way that does not involve equating gay people with pedophiles or dypsomaniacs.
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Today is a good day. You may not agree with all aspects of how it came about, but in the end, people of the same sex who love each other and want to build a life together are now afforded some of the same privileges as heterosexual couples. I fail to comprehend how anyone could think allowing gay couples to participate in the tradition of marriage somehow erodes the institution. They should be far more concerned with people like me who think marriage is an outdated concept that the government should have nothing to do with and that most people should simply enter into a non-religious contractual union between two *or more* people.







Bruce P. Majors   Lots of people were against gay marriage. Back in 2012 Obama and Osama were still homophones.
Ryan Caley. The reason I have a half smirk on my face when I hear democrats say things like “mind your own business and quit telling other people how to live” or say “you have no right to tell other people what is right or wrong. Stay out of the bedroom” is because while I completely agree, they are the worst at minding their own business. They have no problems taking over healthcare, taking away my gun, controlling education and not supporting school choice or vouchers, want more taxes and regulations, want to take over the Internet, soak the rich, redistribute wealth, increase their power and scope at every level and use the IRS to target conservatives, want to dissent on those who disagree, ban things etc… If democrats did mind their own business and stop trying to control everything, I would take them seriously on gay marriage.






Bruce P. Majors Confused about the tortured reasoning SCOTUS used to reach the gay marriage decision? Just remember, marriage is a tax AND a penalty





Gus Spanier An observation….I have heard from conservative sources that the gay population has been vastly over estimated. If that is the case, why are these conservatives getting excited about the SCOTUS’s decision if it only effects such a small percentage of the population?
Bruce P. Majors  A guy here is demanding the right to marry two women. That’s easier now. Just find a willing married lesbian couple. It’s like shampoo and conditioner in one.
Craig Holland Dixon  Someday I’ll have explain to my grandchildren that I tried to stop the government overreach. They will be wide-eyed with amazement as I explain to them that people used to live in houses with yards– not urban cubby hole apartments, were allowed to drive their own gas powered cars, eat whatever they wanted, say offensive things without being fined or arrested, and even keep most of their paycheck!
But try as I might to get them to do so, instead of lowering my god damn taxes and reducing the size and scope of government intrusion, too many of my fellow Republicans couldn’t stop worrying about where consenting adults were putting their penises.



Bruce P. Majors Breaking – SCOTUS rules Obamacare covers treatment for penumbral emanations.
Elisheva Hannah Levin·   Some  of my better reasoned statements come out of discussions with friends. In pondering with some libertarian friends the issues surrounding the SCOTUS ruling re: gay marriage, one commentor mentioned “states’ rights.” I responded: 
States don’t have rights. Only individuals have rights.
States have powers, and they have more powers than the Feds. That said, the states agreed to the constitution, and the bill of rights is part of that document since 1791. The states have no power to violate the natural rights of individuals. The states have no power to privilege one group by allowing them a contract others may not have. 
And that said, really, neither states or localities should be issuing permission slips that limit anyone’s right to make whatever contract he or she wants. By the same token, states have no power to force individuals into a contract. 
This is why BOTH Obamacare AND marriage licenses violate individual rights. So is getting the state to force someone to bake you a cake.


Robert MarshallI think soon the Democratic Party is going to enact an edict that to be gay you have to get the seal of approval from them.
Because you know being born gay is not enough, you have to prescribe to the politics to get that float seat in the Pride parade.
Then you have to grovel at the feet of heterosexuals who changed their profile pics to rainbows to thank them for their social media activism and to be grateful for things you didn’t even want.
Mario Rizzo. Take a perfectly libertarian idea — same sex civil marriage. Then mix in the progressive mindset — if people have a legal right to do something then everyone must act as if they approve this exercise of rights. Then comes “Mother of Pearl Day School” — not a religious school but a value-laden school. “We do not want to hire people who are in same-sex marriages to teach our innocent, but ignorant, children.” What then? You know the rest of the story. Pluralistic values have no role. This is not libertarian. I guess we will have to live with this moral mess.



Bruce P. MajorsYou know all you deep fried social cons who think Lord Jesus will be sending biblical plagues against America for legalizing the freedom to marry should know I support totally your rights to make cakes, preach gospel, pray, sing, hire, fire, attend weddings, etc etc as you please.
And when you write some stuff comparing me to pedophiles and people on heroin and people who like goats just remember that I am a tolerant, patient, open minded person who will wait for you to be all alone before I strike.
I stood up in front of our marriage rally today and told them libertarians have promoted marriage equality since 1971 and as the LGBTQ coordinator of Libertarian Party of Bexar County and as a member of Outright Libertarians, which is the LGBTQ branch of the Libertarian Party we want to welcome everyone.







Bruce P. Majors
Now that gay marriage is legal I’m launching an App for gay couples planning vacations. Merging Foursquare with Grindr, I call it Foursome.



Marc Scribner
Gays win, religionists cry, and we get some excellent Free Beacon trolling. Great day for America.
“The Supreme Court on Friday struck down state bans on same-sex marriage, bringing the United States one step closer to the freedom-loving utopia envisioned by right-leaning philanthropy baron David Koch.
Koch, who has publicly supported gay marriage since before Hillary Clinton flip-flopped on the issue, signed on to a Supreme Court brief in March urging the court to overturn same-sex marriage bans. Clinton, meanwhile, did not believe in a Constitutional right to gay marriage until April 15, 2015.
The court’s ruling is just the latest example of how the Koch brothers will be remembered as tireless champions of freedom who have consistently been on the right side of history. David Koch has donated generously to the arts and is an outspoken enemy of cancer, which has riled his critics on the anti-ballet, pro-death left. His recent donation to a New York City hospital, for example, inspired an angry protest from liberal groups. Koch-backed efforts to reform our broken immigration and criminal justice systems are currently under attack from Democratic operatives loyal to Hillary Clinton.
Fortunately for America, these attacks are almost certain to fail. The arc of history is long, but it bends toward Koch.
Dick Cheney was also an early backer of gay marriage.”
Bruce P. Majors Breaking – Supreme’s mandate that employers offer gay marriage, the only proven 100% effective method of birth control.





Joshuwa Proctor This is why we can’t have nice things, well other than decor, home cooked meals and a night of Idol without interruptions. But other than that, no nice things at all.
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Banned from RedState! – We Don’t Want to Hear Any Pro-Gay Marriage Crap from you Fudge Packers Here!

30 Jun
I’ve been publishing for a few months as a diarist at the blog RedState, several of whose writers I really enjoy, and which had some kind words to say about me in the past when I was in an argument with some establishment Democratic Party gays.

I mainly post things there that I had also posted, in a different form, here at Insomniac Libertarian.
I took one such post, on Libertarian rants (and jokes) about the SCOTUS decision on marriage equality, and added a preface just for the RedState audience, on advice for the RedState readers.
Apparently, RedState prefers a monochromatic editorial policy, allowing in only pieces opposing gay marriage.
I’ve now been banned from RedState.  I can’t post any new diaries.  The two most recent diaries I wrote have been erased from my list of diary entries.  If you search for me on their site you will get a null result.  (If you look up one of my diaries their on an outside search engine you may find it.)  Here is the bravely non-anonymous midnight communication from Bill S. (perhaps I can get the Hustice Department to subpoena his identity for me?):
“Bill” was also upset that I had posted half an article I had been able to get published at Breitbart at RedState, with a link to Breitbart if you wanted to read the rest, which I did, as I said in the post, so I could publish a photo that Breitbart had left out (Bill S. had ordered me to post the entire piece, which I did this morning, and then he banned me):

Libertarians rant on gay marriage decision; plus the comedy stylings of Bruce Majors

28 Jun
Today is a good day. You may not agree with all aspects of how it came about, but in the end, people of the same sex who love each other and want to build a life together are now afforded some of the same privileges as heterosexual couples. I fail to comprehend how anyone could think allowing gay couples to participate in the tradition of marriage somehow erodes the institution. They should be far more concerned with people like me who think marriage is an outdated concept that the government should have nothing to do with and that most people should simply enter into a non-religious contractual union between two *or more* people.







Bruce P. Majors   Lots of people were against gay marriage. Back in 2012 Obama and Osama were still homophones.


Ryan CaleyThe reason I have a half smirk on my face when I hear democrats say things like “mind your own business and quit telling other people how to live” or say “you have no right to tell other people what is right or wrong. Stay out of the bedroom” is because while I completely agree, they are the worst at minding their own business. They have no problems taking over healthcare, taking away my gun, controlling education and not supporting school choice or vouchers, want more taxes and regulations, want to take over the Internet, soak the rich, redistribute wealth, increase their power and scope at every level and use the IRS to target conservatives, want to dissent on those who disagree, ban things etc… If democrats did mind their own business and stop trying to control everything, I would take them seriously on gay marriage.






Bruce P. Majors Confused about the tortured reasoning SCOTUS used to reach the gay marriage decision? Just remember, marriage is a tax AND a penalty






Gus Spanier An observation….I have heard from conservative sources that the gay population has been vastly over estimated. If that is the case, why are these conservatives getting excited about the SCOTUS’s decision if it only effects such a small percentage of the population?


Bruce P. Majors  A guy here is demanding the right to marry two women. That’s easier now. Just find a willing married lesbian couple. It’s like shampoo and conditioner in one.

Craig Holland Dixon  Someday I’ll have explain to my grandchildren that I tried to stop the government overreach. They will be wide-eyed with amazement as I explain to them that people used to live in houses with yards– not urban cubby hole apartments, were allowed to drive their own gas powered cars, eat whatever they wanted, say offensive things without being fined or arrested, and even keep most of their paycheck!

But try as I might to get them to do so, instead of lowering my god damn taxes and reducing the size and scope of government intrusion, too many of my fellow Republicans couldn’t stop worrying about where consenting adults were putting their penises.




Bruce P. Majors Breaking – SCOTUS rules Obamacare covers treatment for penumbral emanations.

Elisheva Hannah Levin·   Some  of my better reasoned statements come out of discussions with friends. In pondering with some libertarian friends the issues surrounding the SCOTUS ruling re: gay marriage, one commentor mentioned “states’ rights.” I responded: 

States don’t have rights. Only individuals have rights.

States have powers, and they have more powers than the Feds. That said, the states agreed to the constitution, and the bill of rights is part of that document since 1791. The states have no power to violate the natural rights of individuals. The states have no power to privilege one group by allowing them a contract others may not have. 
And that said, really, neither states or localities should be issuing permission slips that limit anyone’s right to make whatever contract he or she wants. By the same token, states have no power to force individuals into a contract. 
This is why BOTH Obamacare AND marriage licenses violate individual rights. So is getting the state to force someone to bake you a cake.


Bruce P. Majors  It’s the only proven method of birth control


Robert MarshallI think soon the Democratic Party is going to enact an edict that to be gay you have to get the seal of approval from them. 

Because you know being born gay is not enough, you have to prescribe to the politics to get that float seat in the Pride parade.

Then you have to grovel at the feet of heterosexuals who changed their profile pics to rainbows to thank them for their social media activism and to be grateful for things you didn’t even want.



Mario Rizzo. Take a perfectly libertarian idea — same sex civil marriage. Then mix in the progressive mindset — if people have a legal right to do something then everyone must act as if they approve this exercise of rights. Then comes “Mother of Pearl Day School” — not a religious school but a value-laden school. “We do not want to hire people who are in same-sex marriages to teach our innocent, but ignorant, children.” What then? You know the rest of the story. Pluralistic values have no role. This is not libertarian. I guess we will have to live with this moral mess.



Bruce P. MajorsYou know all you deep fried social cons who think Lord Jesus will be sending biblical plagues against America for legalizing the freedom to marry should know I support totally your rights to make cakes, preach gospel, pray, sing, hire, fire, attend weddings, etc etc as you please. 

And when you write some stuff comparing me to pedophiles and people on heroin and people who like goats just remember that I am a tolerant, patient, open minded person who will wait for you to be all alone before I strike.





Annette AndersonOutright Libertarians
I stood up in front of our marriage rally today and told them libertarians have promoted marriage equality since 1971 and as the LGBTQ coordinator of Libertarian Party of Bexar County and as a member of Outright Libertarians, which is the LGBTQ branch of the Libertarian Party we want to welcome everyone.









Bruce P. Majors

Now that gay marriage is legal I’m launching an App for gay couples planning vacations. Merging Foursquare with Grindr, I call it Foursome.



Marc Scribner

Gays win, religionists cry, and we get some excellent Free Beacon trolling. Great day for America.

“The Supreme Court on Friday struck down state bans on same-sex marriage, bringing the United States one step closer to the freedom-loving utopia envisioned by right-leaning philanthropy baron David Koch.

Koch, who has publicly supported gay marriage since before Hillary Clinton flip-flopped on the issue, signed on to a Supreme Court brief in March urging the court to overturn same-sex marriage bans. Clinton, meanwhile, did not believe in a Constitutional right to gay marriage until April 15, 2015.
The court’s ruling is just the latest example of how the Koch brothers will be remembered as tireless champions of freedom who have consistently been on the right side of history. David Koch has donated generously to the arts and is an outspoken enemy of cancer, which has riled his critics on the anti-ballet, pro-death left. His recent donation to a New York City hospital, for example, inspired an angry protest from liberal groups. Koch-backed efforts to reform our broken immigration and criminal justice systems are currently under attack from Democratic operatives loyal to Hillary Clinton.
Fortunately for America, these attacks are almost certain to fail. The arc of history is long, but it bends toward Koch.
Dick Cheney was also an early backer of gay marriage.”


Bruce P. Majors Breaking – Supreme’s mandate that employers offer gay marriage, the only proven 100% effective method of birth control.


How many guys went out and celebrated the ruling last night, by doing things that are the opposite of what you would need to do if married to someone? lol







Joshuwa Proctor This is why we can’t have nice things, well other than decor, home cooked meals and a night of Idol without interruptions. But other than that, no nice things at all.


Ted Olson speaks to reason donors

23 Jun

Ted Olson speaks on marriage equality to reason donors and staffers at Oyamel. Audience included Congressman Jared Polis, toking Judge Douglas H. Ginsburg, recently gay Reason Foundation president David Nott, Georgetown Law professor Randy Barnett, and reason editors Todd Krainin, Nick Gillespie, Peter Suderman, Preston Cornish, Cynthia Bell, Katherine Mangu Ward, Meredith Briggs. (If you need more and better photos, Todd Krainin has them.) — at Oyamel Cocina Mexicana in Washington, D.C.

Monday’s recommended reading

1 Jun

Gay Marriage at SCOTUS

28 Apr

Several hundred supporters of gay marriage and several dozen opponents (the latter mainly religious and mainly opposed to abominations in general, single or betrothed), gathered at the Supreme Court today while it heard arguments.

The Cato Institute filed an amicus brief.  reason magazine covers it here; the DC gay news weekly Metroweekly covers it here.

Most of the crowd was aware of the arguments being advanced in some detail and felt the court will uphold gay marriage decisions of lower federal courts.  They just aren’t sure whether it will be upheld as a Constitutional right that exists that all states must recognize, or whether it will just be that all states must recognize via the “full faith and credit” clause any gay marriage from another state.

(I will be uploading photos and videos to this post throughout the afternoon.)

Here’s a lesbian couple who’ve been together 33 years:

Here’s a reporter from the conservative Media Research Center interviewing someone with the Gay and Lesbian Chamber of Commerce: 


One of many “Gay-9s” in attendance.  While they ranged from Italian greyhounds to bulldogs to muts, this rainbow ascoted poodle was the gayest of them all.











Here’s a reporter from Mother Jones interviewing the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence:

A fairy was granting marriage equality wishes with a sparkly wand:

There was chanting back and forth between he pro- and anti-gay forces: 

New Yorker Jimmy LaSalvia, formerly of Log Cabin Republicans and then founder of GoProud, now an Independent, was here just to visit his former town of residence (D.C.)

Supporters of marriage equality unfurl a rainbow banner:







(Libertarian and LGBT groups may use any of these photos or videos, just give a photo credit.)

Libertarian women’s history month: Lynn Kinsky

26 Mar
Lynn Kinsky (May 22, 194? – ) grew up in Hialeah, Florida, graduating from Hialeah High School in 1962, and going to college at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.  With her then husband engineer Robert Poole and attorney Manual Klausner she took over reason magazine from its creator Lanny Friedlander and helped expand it into what it has become today.  Kinsky wrote for reason in the 1970s, as well as for the Association of Libertarian Feminists.

In an interview on the early years of reason magazine, Kinsky said getting reason out on time placed stress on her marriage: “reason took up all of my free time. Bob was more efficient at working than I was. I got writer’s block. I wound up doing all the copy editing. At that time every Randroid and libertarian wannabe sent in their philosophical treatises, and my job was to make it readable. I’d come home from work—I was also going to grad school—and start copyediting. For four or five years I didn’t see any TV, didn’t have any life other than reason.

“When putting an issue to bed, we all got together, Tibor, me, Bob, Tibor’s wife at that time, Marilynn Walther, had a big social work session. Several times [academic philosopher and first Libertarian presidential candidate] John Hospers, who lived nearby, would bring us a big pot of borscht. Libertarians would show up from the community in Southern California.

“And we would meet our deadlines. That set us apart from the run-of-the-mill libertarian magazine. That was courtesy of Bob. It was stressful to our marriage, but it did get the magazine out on time.”

In an article “Defending Tolerance,” in the September 1975 issue of reason, Kinsky was an early advocate of marriage equality:

“…libertarians should try to develop a sympathetic comprehension of what being a homosexual in this society involves, and the sort of legal discrimination a homosexual encounters. For instance, a lesbian can be virtually assured of losing her children if their custody ever gets called into question (as in a divorce case)-her sexual orientation is considered by most courts to be prima facie evidence of her unfitness to be a mother. The marriage laws are obviously discriminatory and thereby deny to homosexual couples legal benefits granted to heterosexual marrieds-lower tax rates, immunity from being forced to testify against a spouse, etc. Probably the most blatantly homophobic institution in our society is the military and security establishment. The armed forces’ refusal to allow homosexuals to join or to stay in the military reaches beyond the issue of whether homosexuals should have a chance to receive the training, pensions, and other benefits their tax dollars are paying for-veteran status and an honorable discharge affect a man’s chances of getting a job, being admitted to a school, receiving preferential insurance rates, etc. (Note that I am not talking about a private business discriminating against homosexuals-libertarians certainly recognize the right to discriminate so long as no force is involved. I am talking about private business using a government certification and the government’s using some nonrelevant criterion in awarding it.) An inability to get a security clearance (even where they don’t present a security risk) can cut a homosexual off from employment in any company holding government contracts and in fact can close whole industries to homosexuals.”

In recent years Kinsky has become an equestrienne, riding in more than 2,000 competitive trail miles in 60 North American Trail Ride Conference events, all on Peruvian Pasos. More than 1,710 of those miles were logged aboard her black gelding, El Sinchi Roca (Sinchi). Today, she owns a dozen of the smooth- moving equines.  “I enjoy NATRC so much, because you get to ride beautiful wilderness trails, many not normally open to the public,” she says. “And at the same time, riders learn valuable lessons in horsemanship, how to take care of their horses over challenging trails, and how to lessen wear and tear on their horses.”


In early 2015 Kinsky suffered a stroke.

Marriage equality or marriage privatization? Why not both?

23 Mar
There seems to be a lot of confusion among libertarians on how to handle the issue of marriage equality from a uniquely libertarian standpoint. Some suggest that the struggle to remove government from our personal lives requires more than equal marriage rights for same sex couples – I agree with them.  Others adopt the all-or-nothing approach of opposing marriage equality now in favor of abolishing state marriage altogether – I disagree with these people.

Fortunately, the Libertarian Party’s platform makes its position clear:

Sexual orientation, preference, gender, or gender identity should have no impact on the government’s treatment of individuals, such as in current marriage, child custody, adoption, immigration or military service laws. Government does not have the authority to define, license or restrict personal relationships. Consenting adults should be free to choose their own sexual practices and personal relationships.

Let’s cut to the chase: The messages in italics are NOT in conflict with one another; it is true that government has no business in marriage to begin with, but the reality is that government IS involved currently, issuing benefits that are still denied for the sole reason of choosing to marry a person of the same sex. Rather than solely focusing on our long-term goal of removing government from marriage, Libertarians should applaud the striking of gay marriage bans as a step toward that goal. Sate-endorsed discrimination is government overreach at its worst. Ensuring marriage equality would deregulate that overreach.

Does the push for marriage equality make the idea of abolishing state marriage meaningless? Absolutely not. My hope is that The United States will return to a common law marriage system in which individuals would not be required to “ask permission” via license in order to establish a new legal next of kin. However, this must be done tactfully.

Recently, Rep. Todd Russ (R) of Oklahoma received much praise from libertarians after he introduced a bill with the intent of getting county court clerks out of the duty to officiate marriage ceremonies. He admits this was a response to a federal court striking down Oklahoma’s ban on same-sex marriage and the fear that the Supreme Court would uphold that ruling later this summer. The problem with his solution is that it would not allow same-sex marriage recognition given Oklahoma’s state constitutional amendment banning such unions.

Libertarians who want the “state out of marriage” come in a number of flavors, some genuinely want to liberate all types of families from the clutches of the state, but quite a few more are just masking their discomfort with equality in that rhetoric. We should not confuse the reactionary tactics of those who fear equality under the law with those that strive for progressive libertarian solutions.

So next time a self-proclaimed libertarian refuses to accept the incremental approach of supporting marriage equality before abolishing state marriage altogether, remember this…


(reposted from OutrightLibertarians)