UKIP Libertarian unless if comes against the authority of The Church* #equalmarriage #fisk

With a former Conservative councillor defecting to UKIP over the issue of equalising marriage for same-sex couples up steps David Coburn of UKIP's National Executive Committee to promptly put his foot in it by clearly not understanding the first of the big words he used. As usual I shall fisk in red.

 "We are a libertarian party Libertian n. 1.One who advocates maximizing individual rights and minimizing the role of the state. 2. One who believes in free will. adj. of, relating to, or characteristic of a libertarian which doesn't believe in the government interfering in how people live their lives. We support civil partnerships, enabling gay men and women to register their long-term commitment to each other. I have fought for this all my life. 

 "But David Cameron seems to be saying that marriage is something else so much for maximising individual rights as true libertarians. If so, it is clearly in the domain of the church and other faiths – and it is none of government's business to meddle with it. Ok we come to a point here. The consultation before the people is currently for civil marriage nothing to do with how the churches conduct marriage. They are not meddling in religious marriage and have nothing to do with the church and other faiths.

Mind you on the issue of the church and other faiths, some of them want to be able to offer equal marriage (Quakers, Unitarians, some Liberal Jews, and others)  but the current consultation isn't letting them because it is only focusing on civil marriage. Should the government stop meddling there and let each faith group determine what it wants to define marriage as? Surely that is the Libertarian approach.

 "It seems that, through some kind of political correctness, David Cameron is picking a fight with the millions of people whose religious faiths do not recognise same-sex marriages I state again some faith groups do, but he isn't letting them recognise same-sex marriage David Cameron is only working in the civil sphere. That, in our view, is an aggressive attack on people of faith, and an act of intolerance in itself so being Libertarians only so far as it doesn't go against the authority of say the Church of England and the Bishop of Rome (and you thought UKIP didn't want Germans and the rest of Europe to dictate to us here in the UK). 

"In addition, if the government does legislate in this way, we believe that any criticism of same-sex marriage which may be expressed by someone on the basis of their faith could be classified as a 'hate crime' whereas only calling same-sex long term commitments by some second class name so that some can talk only about married couples and ignore that other classification isn't . That would be a grotesque assault on people's freedom of conscience. But not libertarian enough to look at everyone's freedom on conscience"

Of course the problem above has arisen from UKIP claiming to be Libertarian, however that is Libertarian with provisos and caveats. Murray Rothbard describes Libertarianism thus:

"a theory which states that everyone should be free of violent invasion, should be free to do as he sees fit except invade the person or property of another. What a person does with his or her life is vital and important, but is simply irrelevant to libertarianism."

Therefore true libertarians should be allowed to be with whomever they want. If they want to marry they should be free to do so whether it is someone of the opposite or same sex, after all that does not invade the person or property of another. If someone wishes to marry someone of the opposite sex it is not diminished by the desire of someone to marry someone of the same. However, if the person married to someone married or desiring to be married to someone of the opposite sex denies someone seeking to marry someone of the same sex and call it marriage that is an invasion.


Walter Block adds:

"The non-aggression axiom is the lynchpin of the philosophy of libertarianism. It states, simply, that it shall be legal for anyone to do anything he wants, provided only that he not initiate (or threaten) violence against the person or legitimately owned property of another. That is, in the free society, one has the right to manufacture, buy or sell any good or service at any mutually agreeable terms."

So unless equalising marriage threatens to bring about violence against others it should be legalised by a libertarian.


So UKIP and especially David Coburn are you Libertarian or against against equalising gay marriage? I put it to you that you cannot be both.


* Capitalisation of 't' in the in the title is because it is the State and Roman Catholic churches that are most vocal in their opposition (there are of course others), there are other smaller churches that are not opposed to equal marriage.