I thought it might be interesting to offer the responses we received to our editorial on same-sex marriage — the responses come from the South Brunswick Post and The Princeton Packet.
Stan, Dec. 18:
Same sex “marriage” violates the laws of Nature and of Nature’s God. These people know where they’re going.
Dennis C. McGrath, Dec. 18:
Yes, I do know where I’m going. To the courthouse, to be civilly married and have my full rights as a citizen restored. Whatever you imagine your god to be or to care about is of no consequence to me, and of no legal standing. Sorry, Stan.
cav, Dec. 19:
Stan is quite the closed minded bigot. He’s living back in the 1950s when it was OK to vent your hatred for gays with impunity and to beat them up without worry of any consequences. Beating a gay to a pulp was sport and fun for the hate mongers.
Notstan, Dec. 20:
Stan is obviously a time traveler from 1843, how quaint. Laws of nature? Hate to burst his bubble but homosexuality does exist in nature.Homosexual and bisexual behavior are widespread in the animal kingdom: a 1999 review by researcher Bruce Bagemihl shows that homosexual behavior, has been observed in close to 1500 species, ranging from primates to gut worms, and is well documented for 500 of them.
taylor, Dec. 21:
Like President Elect Obama, I don’t believe marriage should be made legal between a man and a man or a woman and a woman. Why am I called a bigot, but Obama is given a pass? Hmmmm, interesting double standard, to be sure. Why aren’t gay groups picketing TODAY outside his multio million dollar mansion in Chicago? What a joke.
Rob, Dec. 22:
taylor, the LGBT community is doing what it can in seeking President-Elect Obama’s support. As you may have heard here’s a busy man, and picketing outside his mansion in Chicago is not the way to reach him.Obama’s support at the moment means, on a federal level, once he is sworn into office, to fulfill his campaign promises to repeal DOMA (the Defense of Marriage Act which makes it so that legal same-sex marriages recognized in MA and CT do not need to be recognized by other states, nor does the federal government need to recognize them) and DADT (Don’t Ask Don’t Tell). He has already said that repealing DADT will be a delayed action because, well, there’s the whole economy thing to deal with. You being called a bigot is unfortunate, but regardless of you being labeled as such, I am curious why you feel that marriage should not be made legal between two persons of the same gender, and invite you to either respond to my comment or to e-mail me.
I find the debate here interesting — more for the sense of victimhood being offered by the defenders of so-called “traditional marriage” than for any real discussion of the issue.
I do think it important to add — in response to taylor — that the LGBT community is protesting Obama’s choice of the Rev. Rick Warren of the author of “The Purpose Driven Life” and the conservative evangelical pastor of the Saddleback Church in Orange County, Calif., to give the invocation at the inaugural. So no, Obama is not getting a pass from the LGBT community.
Hank Kalet 
The problem is the gooferment shouldn\’t be involved in \”marriage\” at all! Argh!!!
So in the libertarian nightmare utopia (dystopia) folks just declare themselves married all by themselves. They make up their own marriage certificate. Not everyone is religious or belongs to an organized religion. When the marriage goes on the rocks in libertarian land and it\’s a nasty, bitter break up, you don\’t go to the courts because I guess there are no courts, no judges, no judicial system in libertarian land. The man and woman just duke it out and who ever survives the knife fight gets custody of the kids, the house, the cars, the pets, etc. There is not now and there has never been an actual libertarian country. An actual libertarian country would self destruct in about 5 minutes and leave behind a nasty toxic smell of rotten eggs.
How silly can you be? Of course, there are contracts. And, Dispute Resolution Organizations like Judge Judy, Judge Joe Brown, Judge MM.The definition of \”marriage\” belongs to the people. IF you want to have it in a Church, then that Church, as group of like minded people, will have standards. If you wish to be in their company, you abide by their standards.We have \”common law\” marriage now.No, duking it out is unacceptable. The GOOFERMENT\’s only proper role is to keep the peace and defend everyone\’s rights from force or fraud.RE: No libertarian country! We\’ve covered this before. Iceland for 250 years had one. And, Somalia is pretty \”libertarain\”. And, we are \”evolving\”. Hell we had Kings for centuries. Tyrants from time to time. We\’re getting to the realization that \”forcing people to do something they don\’t want to do\” is a losing strategy. (See how well prisons work?)As I see it: everyone wants \”their rights\” protected. Once we recognize that we\’ll all be better off. WITHOUT a ham-handed government telling us what we can and can\’t put in our own body. (Food and drugs) WITHOUT gooferment taking a large slice of our earnings to give to thieves in bailouts, ne\’er-do-wells who want to live off the dole, all while taking a large chuck for their \”non-service\”.Just wait, it\’s coming. It\’s a natural as the grass that grows. Humans are \”un governable\”. You have to motivate them in their own self-interest.
The fact that Iceland had no central government for 250 years, (I\’ll accept that assertion on faith for now) doesn\’t mean that it was libertarian or even desirable. Jeezus, as for Somalia, it is in a state of chaos, subject to the whims of war lords, pirates and vicious militias (glorified gangs). If Somalia is an example of libertarian government, then libertarianism is indeed an abject failure.
From a BBC profile on Somalia:\”Somalia has been without an effective central government since President Siad Barre was overthrown in 1991. Years of fighting between rival warlords and an inability to deal with famine and disease have led to the deaths of up to one million people.\”libertarianism at its finest
As for Medieval Iceland, we\’re talking about a very homogeneous community of a few thousands. It\’s population today is about 293,000, it must have been far lower in medieval times. Libertarianism may work for a time in a very small and very homogenous community of a few thousands. The loud mouth bullies would certainly love libertarianism.