GOP to push for D.C. gay marriage ban

Ok, this kind of thing just pisses me off.  The Hill is reporting that "Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), chairman of the conservative Republican Study Committee (RSC), told The Hill that he will push for a vote on the controversial issue in the 112th Congress."  /sigh.  IT'S ABOUT FISCAL RESPONSIBILITY YOU IDIOTS!  NOT YOUR OUTDATED SOCIAL AND MORALITY CRAP.  I think it's the height of hypocrisy to claim you're in favor of smaller government but then turn around and start telling people what they can and can't do in their personal lives.  I'm already disappointed with Jim DeMint, and was hoping that there would be enough of a libertarian streak in the tea party to counteract this sort of thing.  But who knows?  At the least it'll be interesting to see what happens.  Will libertarians get turned off by the endless moralizing of the religious right and go back to voting democrat?  I know that I'm a fairly hardcore libertarian and I don't think I'll ever vote democrat again.  But libertarians do tend to be a fickle bunch.  The problem is that the democratic party has moved so far to the left that they basically are socialists at this point.  Personally I'd like to see them, along with all liberals, marginalized to the point of extinction.  We'd be left with a debate between the more libertarian among us and the so-cons, at which point we'd trump them with the constitution.  So how about putting your money where your mouth is and respecting that document, eh?  Leave the issue of marriage to the states and get the federal government out of it. (Of course I'm aware that congress has the constitutional authority to legislate over D.C.; I'm really speaking of the issue of gay marriage in general, which I'll get to in the next paragraph.)  This isn't the time for this debate though.  There are far more pressing issues.


As a side note, I would personally like to see the government out of marriage entirely.  I do understand where the so-cons are coming from though.  It looks like the liberals are trying to use the issue of gay marriage to muscle their way into being able to tell churches what to do.  And I'm not in favor of that, especially when I know it won't be applied evenly.  Catholics who don't want to acknowledge gay marriage are homophobic bigots and must be forced to change.  Muslims who don't want to acknowledge gay marriage are simply protecting their rights to religious freedom and if you're against that then you're an Islamaphobic bigot.  However, from the other side, it looks like the so-cons are trying to have it both ways.  Marriage is defined as both a religious rite as well as a legal contract.  I think this is wrong too.  If we really want to solve the gay marriage debate, I am in favor of separating the religious and legal definitions of marriage entirely.  Everyone, straight or gay, would get a civil union for legal purposes as a contract between two consenting adults.  Churches, then, would be free to choose for themselves if they wish to acknowledge gay marriage.  Some will, and some won't.  People who don't like gays are free to belong to churches that don't, and gays and people who don't care are free to belong to churches that do.