American Foundation for Equal Rights

Cato Institute: The Moral & Constitutional Case for a Right to Gay Marriage

Following bitter defeats in California, Maine, and New York, the gay and lesbian community has a New Year’s victory to celebrate. New Hampshire joins four other states – Connecticut, Iowa, Massachusetts and Vermont – in legalizing gay marriage. And the nation’s capital is also onboard. Washington Mayor Adrian Fenty put it this way: “Marriage inequality is a civil rights, political, social, moral and religious issue.”

He covered all the bases, except one: It’s a constitutional issue as well.

Thomas Jefferson set the stage in the Declaration of Independence: “[T]o secure these Rights, Governments are instituted among Men.” The primary purpose of government is to safeguard individual rights and prevent some persons from harming others. Heterosexuals should not be treated preferentially when the state carries out that role. And no one is harmed by the union of two consenting gay people.

Read the rest of Cato Institute Chairman Robert Levy’s op-ed in the New York Daily News here.