Do libertarians have an obligation to support gay rights?

Consider a fairly recent cultural skirmish: Miss USA 2010.  Here is the exchange between self-described “queen of all media” Perez Hilton and Miss California Carrie Prejean (who actually picked Hilton as her questioner):

Hilton: Vermont recently became the fourth state to legalize same-sex marriage. Do you think every state should follow suit. Why or why not?

Prejean: Well, I think it’s great that Americans are able to choose one or the other. We live in a land where you can choose same-sex marriage or opposite marriage.  And you know what, in my country, in my family, I think that I believe that a marriage should be between a man and a woman.  No offense to anybody out there, but that’s how I was raised and that’s how I think it should be – between a man and a woman. Thank you very much.

Hilton was outraged.  On his blog, he called Miss Prejean a “dumb bitch,” described her as having “half a brain,” and said he would have stormed onto the stage and ripped off her tiara if she had won.

She didn’t, she was runner-up, likely to most observers because of her answer above.  Some observations.

First, as Miss USA pageants go (and I am not fan), and more precisely, as Q&A with contestants go, Miss Prejean issued one of the more thoughtful and courageous answers in the history of the pageant.  I strongly disagree with her conclusion.  But she articulated a rational answer to one of the most politically charged questions in the history of the pageant with grace.  So who is, really, the condescending, power-tripping, frankly dumb bitch here?

Second, the shocking imbalance of civility here should give pause. Carrie Prejean issued not a syllable of ad hominem attack, condemned no one, judged no one, and even expressly incorporated into her answer a desire not to offend. Perez Hilton did what he did, and spoke the vileness that he spoke, within a cultural milieu that tolerates, even sometimes celebrates, that kind of vicious bile. Do gays honestly wonder why conservatives feel a bit besieged, why their human instincts might actually favor good will but their survival instincts point another direction?

Third, the judicial strategy of the gay agenda turns, in part, on achieving protected minority status under the Constitution’s Equal Protection Clause.  Essential to that legal goal is a showing of powerlessness, for that is what gives rise to the awesome and properly reluctant power of the Constitution to override free democratic enactments of legislative bodies elected by the people.  Is the gay community powerless?  Did the gay community look powerless in the exchange between Perez Hilton and Carrie Prejean and its aftermath?

The question of powerlessness plainly colors the cultural libertarianism debate.  A cultural libertarian, like Kerry Howley, objects to liberty suppressing power-tripping wherever it occurs.  And I respect that impulse as a personal distaste for bullies.  (To wit, Perez Hilton.)  It doesn’t dictate libertarian support for gay rights across the board, especially when gays are the bullies.

It is a libertarian imperative to support gay marriage as a political (not judicial) proposition because marriage is a government-sanctioned institution and the government has no legitimate interest in the genders of the spouses-to-be.  It is not a libertarian imperative to support the gay rights agenda across the board, and it is the prerogative of any libertarian to be troubled by, and object to, some aspects of the gay rights agenda.

As it is the prerogative of any libertarian to support every aspect of the gay rights agenda, as I generally do, because I personally believe in a culture of equal respect and stature among gay, trans-gendered, and straight individuals.  But that’s a political proposition, and it must be won politically, without recourse to heavy-handed absolutes.

Kendrick MacDowell is a lawyer and writer in Washington, D.C.