News from the liberterrain…
Saturday Dallas Mayor Mike Rawlings met with members of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender community to explain why he wouldn't sign a pledge supporting same-sex marriage.
"I think that America's got too many pledges out there," he told the Dallas Voice, and defined himself as "pledge phobic."
Last week members of the LGBT community gathered outside city hall to wave signs and chant, "Sign the pledge."
The same-sex marriage issue is still a hot potato for public officials across Texas and around the country.
The mayors of Houston, Austin, San Antonio and other Texas cities have signed the pledge, but the Dallas Morning News published an editorial praising Rawlings for not signing.
"Rawlings doesn't see advocacy of gay marriage as being a fundamental responsibility of the city of Dallas," the editorial stated.
North Texas libertarians agree.
Others, such as lawmakers in New Hampshire, are beginning to see that defining marriage, gay or otherwise, is not the business of their state.
Same-sex marriage became law in New Hampshire in 2009. But Republicans were elected in 2010 in such numbers that they hold veto-proof majorities in the House and Senate, creating what appears to be a golden opportunity to pass a gay marriage repeal bill.
But there's a hitch. Being for or against the repeal bill are not the only positions.
Republican Rep. Andrew Manuse, according to Sunday's Concord Monitor, "would prefer a measure that removes government from defining marriage entirely."
Republican Rep. Seth Cohn, a member of the libertarian Free State Project, "plans to introduce an amendment on the House floor that would take government entirely out of marriage, instead giving all couples a civil union and leaving marriage up to churches and other religious institutions."
Rep. Jennifer Coffey, who considers herself a "Goldwater Republican" and a "little-'l' libertarian," voted against the gay marriage law in 2009, but not because she's against gay marriage.
"I voted against government defining marriage," she said. "It doesn't have the right to define marriage in any sense. It is a religious ceremony."
That approach is supported by the "libertarian-leaning" Republican Liberty Caucus that endorsed 107 House members elected in 2010.
Back in the Lone Star state, the Libertarian Party of Texas platform makes the libertarian position clear: "We believe that marriage is a matter of private contract, and should not be defined or licensed by government."
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