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Huntsman Joins Growing List of Liberty-Focused Conservatives Supporting Same-Sex Marriage

Feb. 25, 2013 11:29am

David Lampo, director of publications at the Cato Institute, is a long-time libertarian activist and author of "A Fundamental Freedom: Why Republicans, […]

David Lampo, director of publications at the Cato Institute, is a long-time libertarian activist and author of "A Fundamental Freedom: Why Republicans, Conservatives, and Libertarians Should Support Gay Rights." His articles have appeared in the Washington Post, Newsday, National Review, Chicago Tribune, Richmond Times-Dispatch and many other publications. He resides in Alexandria, Virginia

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dlampo@cato.org

Author's Website

Huntsman Same Sex Marriage Support Adds His Name to Growing List of Liberty Focused Conservatives

Credit: GABRIEL BOUYS/AFP/Getty Images

One thing the recent election made very clear is the dramatic cultural shift that has taken place in America around the issue of gay rights and marriage. Views about homosexuality and gay rights have changed drastically over the past decade, of course, but over just the past few years, so has majority opinion about same-sex marriage. Recent major polls, for example, show a solid majority of 53 percent (according to a November 2012 Gallup poll) in favor, with 46 percent opposed. After eight years and over defeat for same-sex marriage rights at the ballot box in 30 states, three states finally adopted same-sex marriage through popular vote last November: Maryland, Maine, and Washington. And voters in Minnesota, home to anti-gay Congresswoman Michelle Bachman, decisively defeated a state constitutional amendment she campaigned for that would have outlawed same-sex marriage.

This shift in public opinion has been across the board, including Republicans and conservatives. Even though a majority of Republicans still oppose same-sex marriage, according to a recent poll, 30 percent of them now support marriage equality, and that number has grown substantially in recent years. According to a 2012 Fox News poll, almost 60 percent of Republicans support either same-sex marriage or civil unions, so the party’s rank and file are in fact very different from the rabidly anti-gay caricature imagined by both the left and the religious right base that seeks to set the party’s position on this issue.

Having lost the popular vote in five of the last six elections, the Republican Party is made up primarily of shrinking demographic groups like white men and religious right voters. Younger voters, particularly those 18 to 29, long ago abandoned the Republican Party, based partly on its relentless anti-gay message of the past two decades, and 60 percent of them voted for Barack Obama last November. Female voters and minorities are also now firmly in the Democrat camp. Independents, who were essential to the smashing Republican victory in 2010, are solid in their support of not just gay rights but also marriage equality. They will not long suffer Republican candidates determined to keep gays and lesbians as second class citizens when it comes to their legal rights and responsibilities. The choices facing the Republican Party on this and other volatile social issues could not be clearer, especially in light of the drubbing Republicans took last November.

The need to change course on gay rights is increasingly evident, and prominent Republicans and conservatives have been speaking out on this issue with increasing frequency, trying to make the case that marriage equality is not only consistent with conservative and Republican values but that it will also greatly strengthen the hand of Republicans in national and many state elections.

The latest to speak out on the need for change was former governor Jon Huntsman of Utah, just last week in the pages of The American Conservative magazine. While Governor Huntsman did not gain much traction as a candidate during the Republican presidential primary process, he had arguably the platform with the biggest appeal across the political spectrum, combining a very strong fiscal conservatism with a pro-life but also pro-gay rights (if not pro-gay marriage) message.

Other conservatives have pointed out the rapidly changing views of voters on same-sex marriage and argued that continuing the culture wars in the face of likely defeat is counter-productive. But Governor Huntsman went beyond the usual election-related reasons for change by issuing a moral challenge that goes to the heart of what modern conservatives believe. “All Americans should be treated equally by the law,” he wrote, “whether they marry in a church, another religious institution, or a town hall. This does not mean that any religious group would be forced by the state to recognize relationships that run counter to their conscience. Civil equality is compatible with, and indeed promotes, freedom of conscience.” That, at its core, is a fundamentally libertarian, live-and-let-live statement of how the law should work in the contentious world of personal and religious values and beliefs: let each citizen live his or her own life based on the values he or she believes in (whether religion-based or not), guaranteeing equal legal rights for all and granting special privileges to none, a belief that is sorely lacking in much of the social conservative movement, which too often sacrifices liberty on the altar of narrow religious belief.

Governor Huntsman also pointed out the deeply personal nature of marriage. Extolling his own marriage of 29 years, he said, “My marriage has been the greatest joy of my life. There is nothing conservative about denying other Americans the ability to forge that same relationship with the person they love…. Marriage is not an issue that people rationalize through the abstract lens of the law; rather, it is something understood emotionally through one’s own experience with family, neighbors, and friends. The party of Lincoln should stand with our best tradition of equality and support full civil marriage for all Americans.”

Fortunately, Governor Huntsman is not a voice in the wilderness on this issue. Like-minded conservatives have been speaking out with increasing frequency on this issue. Just last December, former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich, who once vied for the title of being the most anti-gay-rights Republican presidential candidate in 2012, issued a stunning statement arguing that the tide has turned on same-sex marriage and that the Republican Party had better re-think its position on it. Referring to rapidly changing public opinion, he said, “It is in every family. It is in every community. The momentum is clearly now in the direction of finding some way to … accommodate and deal with reality. And the reality is going to be that in a number of American states—and it will be more after 2014—gay relationships will be legal, period.” He also made the critically important distinction between religious marriage in a church or other religious institution from civil marriage, the strictly legal part of marriage, which, he said, should be open to same-sex couples.

Other signs of change abound. Just last month, Dave Kochel, a veteran Iowa Republican activist and Governor Romney’s Iowa campaign senior adviser, came out for marriage equality, saying “The culture wars are kind of over and the Republicans largely lost.” A substantial percent of Iowans, in fact, now support same-sex marriage. Joining him was Illinois Republican Party chairman Pat Brady, who came out in support of the marriage equality bill making its way through the Illinois state legislature, drawing fire from some of his Republican colleagues as well as organizations like the National Organization for Marriage. The Illinois state treasurer, Republican Dan Rutherford, also supports the bill, which is likely to pass. If it does, it would make Illinois the tenth state to adopt same-sex marriage. If, in its current term, the Supreme Court upholds several lower court rulings overturning Proposition 8 in California, by June, nearly a third of American citizens will be living in states that recognize same-sex marriage, a development that was unthinkable just a few years ago.

Whatever private personal or religious views of homosexuality and marriage they might hold, conservatives who actually believe in the principles of limited government and individual liberty have no choice but to extend to gay and lesbian Americans the same constitutional and legal rights they expect for themselves. If they do so, they will open up the Republican Party to a whole new generation of potential supporters and voters, a development that won’t come a minute too soon.

David Lampo is the author of A Fundamental Freedom: Why Republicans, Conservatives, and Libertarians Should Support Gay Rights (Rowman & Littlefield).

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Comments (21)

Tigress1
Posted on February 26, 2013 at 10:38pm
Huntsman was a Progressive plant. This proves it.

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crystalsky
Posted on February 26, 2013 at 7:05pm
By the way God Is Alpha and Omega The first and the last. Don’t underestimate him. He will always have the last say. He is GOD THE ALMIGHTY.

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crystalsky
Posted on February 26, 2013 at 6:57pm
Pastors and christian owners or any1 who don’t want to hand out should not have to hand out Condoms or give a gay marriage Not everybody wants to put condoms or the day after pill in the publics hands like school kids Transgender males allowed in high school to use a females bathroom. They have not had a operation they still have there pipe and they should not be allowed in with the female bathrooms. By the way when Dna is taken would’nt it say male or female? Plus when the cops have to look for a transgender that has done a crime would’nt there DNA still say male or female? This is not hate speech this is fact also you can’t be born this way. Because when you are a baby in a crib your not even thinking of sex. So there is no being born that way. By the way I was watching something on Channel and there was a club no women allowed and it cost a lot to join. How come they get privaliges also like hooters if a chubby old woman wants to work there can they? Who makes the rules for us. but not for every1 else some pay fair share in taxes some put it in assets or don’t have to.

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stone2016
Posted on February 26, 2013 at 9:49am
It is interesting that a Libertarian likes Huntsman because of his gay marriage stance. To call Huntsman a Freedom Lover, you have to ignore his belief in big government. I live in Utah and lived under Huntsman. He did nothing to promote real freedom here.

Huntsman is a “stick your finger in the air” person. He is more interested in being liked than doing the right thing. He is not the man you want to be your go-to LIBERTARIAN.

If you want gay marriage, then lets address the real issues and problems that are caused by it. You say it’s about freedom, but I don’t have the freedom as a baker to deny making a gay wedding cake. Do I as a pastor have the right to not perform a gay wedding? Can I as a property owner deny a gay wedding on my land? Can my child stand up in a state-run school and declare his belief that homosexual activities are sinful and wrong?

Libertarians…you should focus on adressing the freedom concerns for all. Instead you hand pick which ones are worthy of your “principles”.

The problem with Libertarians is they think we can legalize everything and be a free society tomorrow. They don’t want to address the fact that we have to be a society that can handle freedom FIRST. Our society does not teach personal responsibility or consequences. Focus on that and you will win the hearts of many more people. Or keep focusing on drugs, prostitutes, and gay marriage and remain even more fringe than the Republicans you despise.

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- shorelineliz
  Posted on February 26, 2013 at 3:55pm
  uh. duh. Libertarians =Liberals. No difference there.
  
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- David Lampo
  Posted on February 26, 2013 at 4:37pm
  I think you don’t understand the real libertarian view on this issue. Just because libertarians support equality of rights for gays and lesbians, including gay marriage, doesn’t mean we don’t support freedom of association for those who don’t like gays. No baker or photographer or any other business shouldn’t be forced to work for a gay wedding, and a pastor shouldn’t be forced to conduct one. In fact, all the states that have legalized gay marriage have bent over backwards to protect the religious freedom of people who oppose gay marriage. The baker you mention runs afoul of public accomodations laws, not marriage equality, so that should be the focus of your beef. And many of your fellow conservatives who oppose gay marriage and gay rights have a long history of opposing freedom of association for gays and lesbians and other people they don’t like, so they are hardly in a position to complain when they are victims of a government tying to make people live a certain way or offer a product or service to someone they don’t want to. Maybe if they took a live and let live attitude toward gay people, it would be reciprocated. There are clearly hypocrites on both sides of this issue.
  
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- Liberty_Please
  Posted on February 26, 2013 at 4:47pm
  Libertarians don’t focus on drugs, prostitution and gay marriage, that is what you focus on because you don’t like the idea of freedom or personal responsibility. But on those issues, why is it any of your business? How does two gay people marrying effect you? Does their being married somehow diminish your marriage? If so it is fairly weak in the first place. Why do any of us need the government to sanction whom we love and live with? It used to be up to the church to sanction marriage. Get the government out of my life. The best definition of late for Libertarianism is that I don’t know how you should best live your life, so I will stay out of it and you can return that favor.
  
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Brentley
Posted on February 26, 2013 at 12:41am
The fact is this it does not matter what Huntsman thinks or what anyone thinks for that matter. It is what GOD SAYS that matters and what GOD SAYS is this: Marriage is between man and a woman. SIMPLE PLAIN TRUE AND FACT! So regardless of what anyone says it only matters what GOD SAYS. You can think what you want say want you want, but in the end GOD HAS THE FINAL SAY SO.

You may not like that. You may even disagree but that is the FACT!

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- tonypro
  Posted on February 26, 2013 at 1:58am
  Your comment, in a nutshell, is all that matters.
  
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- David Lampo
  Posted on February 26, 2013 at 4:44pm
  Sorry, Brentley, but God doesn’t have the final say. The voters, legislatures and courts do. The marriage license is a civil document that doesn’t have anything to do with religion, or having babies, or anything else concerning your personal religious views. It’s time to give everyone freedom of religion and conscience, not just those who agree with you. Millions of people of faith don’t agree with your religious views and how you cherry pick biblical verses and apply them to people you don’t like. So you need to stop forcing your personal beliefs on the rest of us. That’s what freedom is all about.
  
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ElizabethAnn2
Posted on February 26, 2013 at 12:39am
You don’t sell out your morals to suit a political agenda. You just don’t. We already have a party that has done that. I need someone who I can vote for with a clear conscience…why is that getting more and more difficult?

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- tonypro
  Posted on February 26, 2013 at 2:07am
  Yeppee, we should combine the dumpacraps, and retreads into one party. We could name that party the socialist, communist, fascist, or any of similar names, they represent pretty much all of our current gov.
  
  Then we could start a new party, and name it the tea, constitutional, patriot, Amercan party or many other names that would describe it.
  
  This way the rino’s would be outed, the mccains, grahams, and the like could be kept out of “We the People party” by a simple litmus test as to their beliefs, or give them an exam on true American history, or the Constitution.
  
  Maybe not doable, but it’s a nice thought. Of course the first place to start would be to come up with a way to remove voting fraud. Heck that alone would be a positive move in the right direction.
  
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Lord_Frostwind
Posted on February 25, 2013 at 11:58pm
Sorry johnny, but you’ve run out of the credibility that your father’s name bought you.

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ClarityCalif
Posted on February 25, 2013 at 4:45pm
@Right-Rider you’re obviously a Progressive Republican or Progressive Conservative (choose whatever label fits best) … the difference is that you choose to have the government do your bidding when it comes to activities you personally don’t approve of…for whatever reason that may be … and that’s fine, you’re welcome to your opinion. Many Progressives on the left want to do the same thing when it comes to smoking, eating and free speech. You also seem to be confused between a persons conduct and their orientation, they are not the same thing.

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SeptamusNonovant
Posted on February 25, 2013 at 2:28pm
One major problem with the headline: Jon Hunstman is NOT a conservative. He’s a moderate/RINO. He’s one of those “No Labels” guys. I never understood why Will Cain liked him so much.

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The-Right-Rider
Posted on February 25, 2013 at 1:07pm
With all undue respect mr Lampco, you couldn’t be more erroneous in your political assessment of the situation here.
To be fair, you are using the compass of conformity in an accurate manner, however the conclusion you arrived at is inherently flawed.
The solution to homosexual marriage is NOT to support it, but rather to educate those unaccustomed with the intrinsic details of it.
Your perception on this belief and on all those whom you mistakenly refer to as “conservatives” in regards to the support of homosexual marriage is the main reason why modern day libertarians should never be considered full fledged conservatives, but rather, hybrid liberals.
Allow me to elaborate.
You all understand the need for less intrusive government in the financial sector, but when it comes to the social fabric of society you are all for government molestation of the most egregious sort.
Tell me Mr Lampo, would George Washington have supported your premise? Especially when he booted out a soldier for openly homosexual conduct?
How about the rest of the Founders? When they united to make homosexuality a crime in each of the 13 original colonies?
You sir, are a moral anarchist in the vein of ron paul.
Calling for the republican party to further identify itself as a political misnomer is by no means conservative. You support a very leftist principle here, one which includes having the government redefine Marriage for the sake of popular (yet distorted) opinion.
Your belief is ther

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- The-Right-Rider
  Posted on February 25, 2013 at 1:20pm
  …therefore flawed
  
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- David Lampo
  Posted on February 26, 2013 at 4:53pm
  You are the mistaken one, sir. It is libertarians that consistently apply the principles of limited government and individual freedom, not conservatives. I think it’s odd that you mention the Founding Fathers outlawing homosexuality, as though that’s somehow consistent with a fundamental belief in liberty. The Founders gave us a pretty good blueprint for limited government, but they also didn’t apply their principles in a consistent way, whether it was slavery or women as property with few legal rights, or imprisoning gays, to name just a few examples of how they violated their own stated beliefs. Libertarians are really nothing more than conservatives who actually take seriously the principles of the Founding Fathers and then apply them to everyone, not just favored groups.
  
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shorelineliz
Posted on February 25, 2013 at 12:52pm
Throw all these same sex marriage Conservatives under the bus. Just run them over!

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- The-Right-Rider
  Posted on February 25, 2013 at 1:11pm
  I agree (figuratively)
  
  Guys like lampo are not real conservatives, but instead hybrid liberals. It’s a shame Glenn is giving this sham a forum piece for him to share his misguided conformist hybrid liberal philosophy on here.
  
  A conservative who supports **** marriage is not a conservative,but a liberal with a financially conservative streak. It’s the equivalent of saying a black cat is a skunk just because you paint a white streak down its back.
  
  My lampo, i would utterly annihilate you in a debate.
  
  Consider yourself challenged.
  
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- tonypro
  Posted on February 26, 2013 at 2:17am
  @The-Right-Rider
  
  On the head sir/ma’am. Also any conservative that is for abortion, is not a conservative. Kinda like the liberals screaming for gun control to protect the children, and then using tax funds to abort babies. Pure hypocrisy.
  
  The rino has the stripe painted down his back, but the liberals stripe is real, and that makes them true skunks, :-) At least they have a reason to smell bad, where the rino’s pungent odor is manufactured (deception) and twice as revolting.
  
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