Accidental Blogger

A general interest blog

Stephen Bainbridge, a conservative law professor at UCLA, in response to Brian's veganism poll:

[T]he efforts by some vegans to turn the issue into a political one,
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.

Whatever happens with the legal institution of
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.

Posted in ,

One response to “Eaters vs. Gay People (Joe)”

  1. D

    Hmm. Presumably a majority of citizens has the moral right to eliminate state recognition of marriage entirely – the “hard” case is whether it has the right to eliminate that recognition for just queer folk (no). Meanwhile, it seems like no majority whatsoever has any business telling me I must or must not eat beef, say. The analogue of this is the statement that the state shall stay out of my bedroom, with appropriate statements about voluntary consent etc.

    Like

Leave a comment