 We live in a weird world. Imagine that you're an alien and you decide to visit Earth. You want to learn about human social and political institutions, how we interact with one another, and by what rules. You've overheard that human behavior is strongly influenced by people in Washington, DC, so you decide to visit and observe. Apparently, you've arrived at an exciting time. What do you see? Thousands of people are eagerly awaiting something. An event begins. Nine humans in black robes exchange words with each other, then with some other humans, then again with each other. They look upset and they retreat from their seats. The spectators are waiting with bated breath. Then they re-emerge, share some more words written in oral, and then hundreds of millions of people erupt in applause or anguish. Their lives change immediately. Some cry with joy, some cry with sadness. Things will forever be different. Every policeman and political leader now demands new behavior from every citizen, whether they like it or not. So what happened? Five robed humans raised their hands and four did not. See these humans call this voting and the robed ones are called judges. The judges create the rules for hundreds of millions of other humans who aren't judges. Nor will they ever meet the judges, but they have to obey the rules, whether they like them or not, under penalty of imprisonment or death. Mind you, had one judge, one human, changed his vote, the lives of hundreds of millions would dramatically be different. And why exactly do the hundreds of millions defer to the nine strangers? At this point, it's unclear. Your best guess is that they believe the judges have some right to rule that somehow their words should be treated as rules for the entire society, while regular people's words should not. Okay, enough with the alien stuff. Do you get my point? We live in an extremely peculiar political system when you think about it, and it causes an extremely unnecessary amount of sadness and division. The Supreme Court ruled that gay marriage is a constitutional right to all Americans by a 5-4 vote. Think about that for a minute. One vote made that difference. One vote made the difference. One fellow human controlling hundreds of millions of lives he's never met. Why would anybody think that's a sensible political system? As a libertarian, it's tempting to praise this ruling. Legalizing gay marriage extends liberty and equality to more people than before. However, I'm deeply worried about the principle behind the ruling, the strings attached, and I foresee an even greater diminishing of freedom in the future because of it. So to be straightforward, I know the exact problem with gay marriage in the United States and everywhere else, and I know the perfect solution which satisfies all the parties involved. But before I share the solution, we need to have a clear understanding of the problem. In a nutshell, politics and morality don't mix very well. In the non-political world, when two people disagree with each other, especially on religious or moral issues, they might share some tense words, perhaps they won't communicate at all, or they might sit down and try to work out their differences. If an agreement cannot be met, the world doesn't end, they just might not associate with one another. But when politics gets involved, everything changes. Politics rules out the possibility for peaceful disagreement. Now, if one party loses the debate, they might be forcefully coerced by ideas that they disagree with. Take the gay marriage debate. Say you support the right for anyone to get married, regardless of sexual orientation. Now, because it's a political issue, losing this debate results in literally institutionalized oppression, meaning that couples are legally forced to be discriminated against. They are preventing from enjoying the same benefits as other couples with the approved sexual orientation. The same is true in reverse. Imagine you're a Catholic priest who has a religious objection to gay marriage. Losing the political debate could result in you being legally obligated, forced to perform gay weddings, a complete affront to your entire worldview. This situation is an inescapable win-lose. The freedom that one side gains, the other side loses. And this is true, by the way, for every political issue. By virtue of the nature of politics, winners and losers are inevitable. And the losers, in all cases, are losers by law. The force of government is on the opposing side. So thus we've found the ultimate problem. Marriage has become a political issue. It's a function of government which necessarily means that some group of people will lose their freedom, or they won't gain it in the first place. Of course, this stands in stark contrast to non-political arenas. Take the disagreement between sports fans, which NFL team is best? Well, depending on who you ask, you get very different answers, very strong answers. Cowboys and Eagles fans are arch enemies, and they act like it, but it's not a political issue. Government isn't giving special privileges to the legally best NFL team. Imagine the chaos which would result by such a declaration. NFL fans can strongly and peacefully disagree, even agree to not associate with one another. Or take religious disagreements about meat-eating. What are the Christian and Muslim to do about pork at the dinner table? Can they ever eat together? Well, not if one side is physically forcing their moral judgments on the other. The Christian is stupid to think, well, my religious ideas say that eating pork is okay, therefore you will eat pork at my table. And the Muslim is stupid to think, well, my religious ideas say eating pork is not okay, therefore you will not eat pork at your table. But such a disaster would be inevitable if the government got involved. You'd have lobbying, lawyers quacking at each other, and lofty judges ruling about what shall and shall not be eaten for dinner. When there's one obvious solution staring us all in the face, if you don't like pork, don't eat pork. If you do like pork, then eat it. But don't force other people to behave in ways that you'd prefer. And don't give special perks to the non-pork eaters or penalties to the pork eaters. Somehow this solution allows the Christian and Muslim to eat together, even at the same table, in peace. Without fear of being coerced by ideas that they disagree with. This is why it's tempting but mistaken to fully endorse the Supreme Court ruling. Yes, freedom might expand now, but the principle is in place for it to contract in the future. The judges say gay marriage is legal today. But 20 years from now they might say gay marriage is illegal, and so is homosexuality as it used to be. The same governing principle is the same. Think about it, even a monarch might make declarations you agree with sometimes. He might expand freedom, but should we really celebrate when he does? If the king declares such and such behavior shall no longer be met with imprisonment, my reaction wouldn't be immediately joy. Rather than celebrating, I'd prefer it if people thought, well hang on a second, who's the schmuck to determine what is and isn't illegal behavior in the first place? So I'm afraid by endorsing the Supreme Court ruling, we've given another stamp of legitimacy to an irrational political system, one that will restrict our freedoms in the future. This worry is easy to understand if you imagine a monarch making the decision, but it's also true in a democratic system. I also worry about the inevitable future court cases where churches refuse to marry gay couples and bakers refuse to make their cakes. Given the legal precedent, I can imagine a world where all churches are legally obligated to perform gay weddings, which would be a massive blow to human freedom. Thus we arrive at the perfect solution. Get the government out of marriage all together. Remove the politics and remove all winning and losing. This would satisfy both the gay community and the religious community. In a libertarian world, marriage would be a social and or religious celebration. A public declaration of commitment. Could it be between a man and another man? Between two men and two women? Well, it would depend on the community that you're in. Gay people could associate with groups tolerant towards homosexuality. Their churches and communities would celebrate their wedding, and religious folks could participate in their own communities. Their churches would not be legally obligated to recognize nor perform gay marriages. And, crucially, nobody would be forced into either community. They would associate voluntarily. If a group of Catholics do not recognize a gay couple's marriage, who cares? Just like if they don't associate with Eagles fans, who cares? Their beliefs wouldn't be coupled with a force of government. Without government involvement, considerations of marriage would be like judging whether or not two people are best friends. Who cares? You can say they are, I can say they aren't. Maybe they won't be in the future. If they want to declare themselves permanent partners, it doesn't really affect anybody else. You may think that gay marriage is a right, or you may think that it's a sin. You might think that pork is delicious or an abomination. In the libertarian world, you are entitled to your opinion, but your opinion is impotent. It cannot coerce anybody else. In this scenario, can you spot any winners or losers? No. There are none. Gay people are allowed to marry, so are polygamists and every other voluntary assortment of adults. Objectors are free to object, and nobody's rights are violated. True freedom entails the right to your own opinion, and the right to act as you please so long as it's peaceful. This means that Christian bakers are free to refuse baking a cake for a gay couple, just like a black baker is free to refuse baking a KKK cake. The Klansman is free to hold his ignorant opinions, as long as he doesn't act violently on them, and we are all free to judge his ignorance and refuse to associate with him. Freedom of speech is not only applicable when you say pleasant things. It permits you to say inflammatory things which lots of people hate. The same is true for freedom of thought and association. You are free to think politically incorrect thoughts and associate with unpopular groups. Just because most people in our country think that racial or sexual discrimination is distasteful, that doesn't mean it should be illegal. I would go even farther and say that the libertarian solution is the only peaceful solution. It's the only civilized one. Literally, civilization itself is built on the peaceful resolution to disagreement. Governments, by contrast, are built on the forceful resolution to disagreement. So if you want to preserve civility, we must get the government as far away from marriage as conceivably possible, and return marriage to its proper place as a social institution. Marriage should be about people's commitment to each other, like a grand declaration of permanent best friendship, a declaration of family. We don't need governments involved in determining who can and cannot be best friends for life. We don't need any politicians, lawyers, or judges quacking away about the topic. We do not need a small group of robed humans to tell us what is and is not permissible. And we do not need marital freedom by force. All we need is political silence, an absence of government altogether.