Stephen Bainbridge, a conservative law professor at UCLA, in response to Brian's veganism poll:
using the state to regulate food choices (see, e.g., foie gras bans),
needs to be resisted at every opportunity.
But the same Professor Bainbridge on gay marriage:
I don't have particularly strong views one way or the other on the
issue of gay marriage as a legal institution. As long as the government
isn't telling the Catholic Church (or any other church) that it has to
recognize gay marriages as a religious matter, my libertarian instincts
incline me to take a laissez faire attitude towards marriage as a legal
institution.
marriage, however, ought to happen as a result of democratic processes
rather than by judicial fiat.
So when the democratic process results in laws banning foie gras because the people of a state disapprove of foie gras, it's a bad law. This type of result ought to be resisted. But when the democratic process (which apparently does not include courts interpreting constitutions) results in laws banning same-sex marriage because the people disapprove of same-sex marriage, meh. It doesn't really matter.
Consumers of food should have more rights against the tyranny of the majority than GLBT persons? Am I being unfair in reading his position this way? I really don't think so.
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