“Liberty” is Polling Pretty Well These Days!

Be of good cheer, Save Jerseyans, because Americans are once again becoming a liberty based people.

This may seem like an odd observation particularly in the Obama years, but recent polling shows that more Americans are pro-life than pro-abortion (http://www.gallup.com/poll/154838/pro-choice-americans-record-low.aspx), believe marriage for all (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_opinion_of_same-sex_marriage_in_the_United_States#Polls_in_2012), and support the decriminalization of marijuana (http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/lifestyle/general_lifestyle/may_2012/56_favor_legalizing_regulating_marijuana).

Of course, there are caveats…

That liberty begins at life is not up for debate. However unfortunate, there is debate about what constitutes “a life” (we all know people with no life and yet they have rights). That said, there are areas where many pro-choice and pro-life citizens agree: from parental consent laws, to limiting abortion to the first trimester and mandatory counseling (both on the books in Germany). Clearly there is more common ground than the big government loving NARAL (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NARAL_Pro-Choice_America) crowd would have us believe!

While I am against efforts to force a redefinition of marriage down our throats, the idea that government should not be involved in non-violent moral issues strikes a cord with most Americans, myself included. Brass tax, I will march against efforts to legally redefine marriage and for efforts to deregulate it. But in terms of the general public, we have an opportunity as principled conservatives to tell the gay lobby “stop your top-down big government approach and come with us on the glorious march towards smaller government.”

Marriage is a religious institution and government should have no place in it. We want to deregulate marriage because it is the right of an  Episcopalian church or Reform Jewish shul to marry a gay couple and it is the right of a Catholic or Orthodox Jew to continue to uphold and teach their children the historical definition of marriage and that a deviation from it is wrong.

This is the culture of peace.

Lastly, we come to pot. Even Pat Robertson, host of the 700 Club and a huge leader in the much demonized (personally I think awesome) “Christian Right,” has come out for the decriminalization of marijuana (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sQi7A5MW2kQ). Enough said Save Jersyans. There is common ground here; lets legalize and tax it just as we do cigarettes and alcohol.

Life, gay marriage, and drugs – an odd triumvirate for certain but a pro-liberty one nonetheless.

 

Joshua Sotomayor-Einstein
About Joshua Sotomayor-Einstein 59 Articles
Joshua Sotomayor-Einstein is an old school classical liberal of the smaller government meets neoconservative fusionist variety. As a sometimes Kirkian, sometimes Objectivist, he supports the civic celebration of the Christian foundations of the West, the deregulation of marriage, the legalization of drugs, and the Blue Laws. He is also the NJGOP State Committeeman from Hudson County.