On Respect for Marriage Act, Rep. Armstrong is right and Sen. Cramer is wrong
U.S. Rep. Kevin Cramer speaks at a policy summit hosted by the Americans for Prosperity-North Dakota on Tuesday, Aug. 8, 2017, at the Avalon Events Center in Fargo. David Samson / The Forum
MINOT, N.D. — I’ve never understood why opposition to same-sex marriage is seen as a conservative position.
I’m not here to argue with anyone’s theology, and I oppose any government policy that would require a church to hold a ceremony for a union they find immoral, or for a baker to make a cake for a union that violates his conscience.
But as a practical matter, opposition to same-sex marriage is an authoritarian, big-government position. Why should the government be in the business of telling consenting adults who they can love?
If conservatives mean what they say about the social and economic importance of marriage and family, that they’re stabilizing influences that make for better societies, then why wouldn’t we want our friends and neighbors from the LGBT community to get married and have families?
Believing, as a personal matter, that marriage should only be between a man and a woman is fine, but we live in a free society, and I don’t know what business conservatives have trying to impose their morality on their neighbors, or the church down the street.
