LIBERTARIANS' ANTI-GAY DEBACLE

[DonViejo]

Libertarians who don’t understand liberty: Why the Kansas anti-gay bill is so absurd

Do they even understand what liberty means? Why their support for an anti-LGBT bill in Kansas raises serious doubts

MATT BRUENIG

Kansas’ latest effort to promote discrimination against gays has managed to reopen discussions about the nature of the state’s role in so-called private discrimination. Although conservatives and libertarians like to pretend economic discrimination does not involve state action, the reality is that the state is almost always involved as the background enforcer of such discrimination.

To understand why this is true, a short jaunt through our country’s history is necessary. For a long time in this country, white homeowners in a neighborhood would place racially restrictive covenants on their houses to prevent the houses from being sold to non-white people down the line. In 1948, the Supreme Court ruled in Shelley v. Kraemer that courts could not enforce these racially restrictive housing covenants, effectively neutering them as binding contractual instruments.

The most interesting thing about the Shelley case is the reasoning the Supreme Court used to arrive at its decision. On first glance, the decision might seem a bit strange. Why can’t a group of private white citizens come together and make private agreements with one another to not sell their homes to non-whites? What’s unconstitutional about that? That’s just freedom and liberty, isn’t it?

Indeed, the court explicitly held that the agreements are themselves constitutional. The problem is that the agreements do not enforce themselves. It is the state, through its court system and the police, that is charged with actually booting out a black person who comes into ownership of a house in violation of a racially restrictive covenant. And when the state acts as the enforcer of the covenant, that enforcement action involves racially discriminatory state action that violates the Constitution.

more
http://www.salon.com/2014/02/18/libertarians_who_dont_understand_liberty_why_the_kansas_anti_gay_bill_is_absurd/

[RKP5637]

1. Just the fact they vote these critters into office should give one pause! n/t

[shenmue]

2. I thought libertarians were supposed to be for more liberty

Huh?

[alp227]

3. I guess there's a reason there's an I in libertarian...

as long as the right type of people have the freedom it's all good.