Is There a Libertarian Argument Against Gay Marriage?

"Libertarians are fiscally conservative and socially liberal."  That misnomer highly annoys me, mainly because it's an inaccurate oversimplification.  However, I figured that at least for gay rights, libertarians would be supportive of gay marriage, even if some of them had a personal aversion towards two people of the same sex being together.  After I had recently read this blog entry on the Libertarian Republican, which is based on an article from self-identifying libertarian Pastor Peter Briggs, it looks like I was wrong.  Apparently, there are libertarians who argue that libertarianism is against the idea of gay marriage.  However, this begs an important question: can Briggs' arguments withstand scrutiny?  Let's find out!

• "Marriage is not a privacy issue. Civil marriage is a public institution."
• Marriage is not inherently a public institution.  Throughout a majority of Western history, marriage was a private matter.  The truly libertarian thing to do here would be to take the government out of the marriage business altogether.  As I have stated before, marriage in its most base form is a contract between consenting individuals stating that they want to have a social, emotional, and economic relationship together.  Since we have to deal with the reality that government is going to be in marriage business for a while, we might as well offer the same rights to homosexuals as we do heterosexuals.  Not doing so would be a violation of the Fourteenth Amendment, not to mention the libertarian axiom of contract rights. 
• "In attempting to legalize same-sex marriage, they are now inviting the government into their bedrooms."
• If that's the case, then libertarians should advocate getting rid of all civil marriage.  That way, government can stay out of everybody's bedrooms since civil marriage is inherently intrusive.  However, you're not hearing such advocacy from anti-gay marriage libertarians.         
• "Homosexual marriage is not an issue of individual rights."
• Last time I checked, contract rights and "life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness" were essential to individual rights.  Moral pluralism is also very much a part of libertarianism.  So how is this not an issue of individual rights?    
• "Every American has a right to marry, but also faces restrictions upon whom they may marry. No one is permitted to marry a child, a close blood relative, a person who is already married, or, in most states, a person of the same sex. These are not restrictions upon the right to marry; they are part of the definition of marriage."
• It should be self-evident that we have to face restrictions brought on by the law.  Without it, we'd be in anarchy, and as a libertarian, I don't advocate that.  However, it doesn't apply here.  No one is permitted to marry a child is because a child is not at an age of consent, and thus unable to enter a legally binding contract.  I'm not going to get into the whole incest bit, but I would like to comment that although many Western nations prohibit incest, I was intrigued to find that incest is not prohibited across the board in the Western world.  As for marrying a married person, it should be evident that it would be a violation of a previously signed contract, unless all parties in the contract agreed to the change (e.g., a signed divorce decree vindicating the parties of responsibilities laid out in the previous marriage contract).  And I'm just curious, whose definition of marriage?  The Christian definition?  The one from the Bible?  That can easily be construed as a violation of the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment.  As for the definition of marriage, this point is something I have stated before, but I feel it merits re-iterating: In the history of marriage in Western civilization, a man has been able to marry a twelve-year old girl, he was unable to marry outside his religion, socio-economic class, or race, or even better, there was a time in which marriages used to be arranged.  The definition of marriage in Western culture has been anything but consistent.     
• "Freedom of conscience and religious liberty would be threatened. In the wake of same-sex marriage, we have already seen religious nonprofits being told to compromise their principles or go out of business."
• Because of the nature of non-profits, there are two primary entities that would threaten such organizations: donors or the government.  If you have repulsed enough donors with anti-homosexuality sentiment, that would be the non-profit's fault because they don't know how to conduct business and do fundraising well enough to stay afloat.  Such is the way of non-profits. Now, if the non-profit's primary source of funding is the government, we shouldn't be angry with the government for yanking funding.  Since we are dealing with a violation of the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment, we should be asking why a religious non-profit is receiving government funds in the first place.  If you want to make a private donation to a certain non-profit because it does great work, that is your choice.  However, we shouldn't be using taxpayer dollars to fund these organizations to compel taxpayers to donate to religious non-profit organization with which we don't agree.     
• "Same-sex marriage would compel every employer, including the government, to give same-sex couples benefits identical to those of heterosexual couples."
• Let's forget that most Fortune 500 companies already offer couples benefits to same-sex couples without same-sex marriage being legal in all fifty states.  Private employers should have the right to hire and discriminate as they please.  They should, however, keep in mind that Americans are increasingly supportive of gay rights and gay marriage, something that is illustrated by these recent Pew Center and Gallup polls.  Age is a social trend in favor of gay rights because the younger are much more favorable than older citizens.  Knowing someone who is gay is another social trend in favor of gay rights.  With increased societal acceptance, more gay people will come out, which means a higher probability of acceptance.  My point is that as time goes on, people with anti-homosexual views will be increasingly viewed as bigoted, which is a similar trend we saw during and after the Civil Rights movement.  In short, anti-homosexual views are bad for business.  As for the government's role, they ideally shouldn't be providing such benefits because it's more money from taxpayer's pockets.  However, while government is handing out these benefits, we might as well provide equality under the law.   
• "The rights of children would be undermined. Children have a natural right to be raised by the mother and father whose union produced them."
• The day in which there is no need for orphanages or foster homes, we can take this argument seriously.  Until that time, this argument has no merit.  If it did, we should also make adoption illegal since the child would not be with their natural parents.  There are many children without loving, caring homes.  Homosexual parents should help provide such homes.  Not only has there been no conclusive study proving that homosexual parents are more unqualified than heterosexual parents, but organizations such as the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) and the American Psychiatric Association (APA), amongst other medical organizations, confirm that homosexual parents are just as capable as raising children as heterosexual couples.  

The only legitimate libertarian concern presented in the article is that government is involved in the business of marriage in the first place.  If government is to have any role, it would to be to make sure that the contract rights of marriages, whether straight or gay, are enforced by all parties involved.  Short of that, there is no legitimate libertarian objection to two people of the same sex entering in a marriage contract. 

Furthermore, many libertarians support gay marriage, including Jeff Miron, Bob Barr, Ron Paul, David Boaz, the United States Libertarian Party, the list goes on and on. 

There is plenty of room for political discourse in this country.  I personally can't stand marijuana. But as a libertarian, I have to concede that as long as people aren't harming others while smoking it, then they should be permitted to use it because it wouldn't violate the libertarian axiom of non-aggression.  The same argument can be said for gay marriage.  You can like gay marriage.  You can dislike gay marriage.  And if you don't like gay marriage, don't get married to someone of the same sex!  But if you're a libertarian that's going to argue against gay marriage, keep that opposition on the personal level.  Otherwise, you are against the contract rights, individual liberty, and pursuit of happiness that you profess to believe in.  Wouldn't that make just you a conservative in the garb of a libertarian?