Squashed

Ron Paul, same-sex marriage, and the death penalty

jeffmiller writes:

Questioning libertarians on same-sex marriage seems silly to me, since most libertarians I know support same-sex marriage.  It might be more productive to challenge President Obama, who has stated that he thinks marriage must be between a man and a woman.  Questioning libertarians over the death penalty also seems silly to me, since most libertarians I know are against it.  It might be more productive to challenge President Obama, who supports the death penalty because he thinks communities need to get out their anger or something, which is just about as appalling a reason as one could pick.

Looking beyond Ari, it’s been depressing to see so many liberals criticize Paul on issues where President Obama is by every conceivable measure far worse under the liberals’ own standards.

Jeff is right that Obama’s stated positions on same-sex marriage, the death penalty, and so on are at odds with many of his supporters. Similarly, Paul’s stated stance on same-sex marriage is at odds with many of his supporters.

That said, we ought to ask how the Paul administration would compare with the Obama administration on these fronts. The Obama administration has repealed Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, declined to defend DOMA, and signed the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act. The record isn’t perfect—but it represents real progress.

Paul, on the other hand, has called Don’t Ask Don’t Tell a decent policy, opposes any sort of hate crimes legislation,¹ and is apparently uncomfortable using a gay friends’ bathroom,

We also need to ask who a particular candidate would nominate as judges, who would serve as attorney general, how an administration would prioritize problems, and so on. If Paul were to (improbably) win the primary, we would have to choose between a Democratic administration and a Republican administration. I suspect that Jeff will agree with me that the Obama administration has been much better on these two issues than a Republican administration would be—even if that Republican administration was influenced by Ron Paul’s brand of compromised libertarianism.

(Source: kohenari)