“The final cornerstone we must secure is the spirit of self-determination, the ability to address Utah problems with Utah solutions.”
– Utah Governor Gary Herbert
Bizarre.
Those are the empty words from the Utah governor, heedless of his own cornerstone.
The Republican leader of a radically conservative state has decided that self-determining states trump the freedoms of self-determining individuals who want only to be bound in gay marriage. And so as the freedom of 1,300 same-sex couples sinks abruptly in the West, Herbert rises as the newly self-appointed ringmaster of state-sponsored oppression.
In so doing, Herbert stripped the tormented couples of their recently approved marriages pending the state’s appeal of the lower court’s rulings in the wake of a stay by the U.S. Supreme Court.
Bizarre – particularly since the mantra of the social conservatives is that the Obama-era national government has been brutally intruding on their individual freedoms.
What’s wrong with this picture for a state that long hosted polygamous marriages before the issue began to unravel in the courts? And how far have we gone over the line in a free society to deny a group of citizens their right to live out their lives as they see fit?
We await the Santorums and the Palins and the other passionate defenders of their faith to check in with their explanations of why there is individual freedom… and then there is individual freedom.
Bizarre. Totally.
Think anybody might mention this dark epic to Gov. Kasich in the spirit of compassionate conservatism for Ohioans?
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