There’s an interesting debate going on at Joshua Claybourn’s site (which I noticed after Andrew Sullivan linked to part of it). The question I have for Claybourn (an opponent of FMA) is: How, on your libertarian principles, do you justify governmental marriage licenses in the first place? Shouldn’t the government, on those principles, just recognize whatever contractual arrangements individuals reach? This isn’t a problem for someone like Jonathan Rauch, whose argument for same-sex marriage is conservative rather than libertarian. But if you are arguing from libertarian first principles, then don’t you have to end up where Deroy Murdock and Michael Kinsley are–which is to say, in favor of privatizing marriage altogether?