Good Things from Mike Lee

Russian Olives

I have generally been a fan of Mike Lee. He is one of the few elected officials who seems to care about the Constitution and be able to apply it rationally to the problem of governing.

A story out this week is that Mike Lee is siding with a Colorado baker and a Washington florist who refused to provide their services for same-sex couples' weddings.

This has been one of those areas where thinking tends to get extremely muddled, and I'm rather pleased with Mike Lee's willingness to take a stand here.

All kinds of opinions about whether or not they "should" have refused service exist, but when we start thinking that the government has the right to tell us to do something simply because we "should" do something, we go down a dangerous path. We effectively grant the government a blank check to control our lives, and our freedom becomes a fantasy.

The fact of the matter is that in the cases at hand, neither the baker nor the florist violated any de facto rights, nor any de facto contract or agreement, while at the same time, the state seeks to force their labor against their will without any legitimate cause to do so. This is, effectively, slavery, and a violation of both their rights of liberty, (the freedom we have to make basic moral choices that are ours, by right to make) and property (the right to have and control things that we own, including our selves, our cakes, and our flowers). While one may disagree with their choices to refuse service, it is nevertheless true it the choices were theirs to make. When we let our disagreement with people's legitimate choices translate into legislation we are throwing the baby out with the bathwater. In effect we support the world's continuing slide into reviving slavery. It is a grave error.

While some may feel it disingenuous to equate forcing bakers to make cakes for same-sex marriage celebrations with slavery, despite the literal way in which it conforms to the definition, it should be clear that the more that we accept that people do not have the right to make decisions for themselves, the more we objectify people, and that the more we, as a society, objectify people, the more we should expect that people within our society will feel that there is nothing wrong with abusing their fellow man. Hence, when we start seeing ourselves and others as things, we should expect theft to increase, rape to increase, violence to increase, and human trafficking to increase.

The solution is not to force everybody to like each other, or to treat people even more like objects by stealing from some to give to others, or forcing them to labor for causes they don't agree with. The solution is to start returning to people the power to act for themselves and to adopt the ethic of respecting natural rights.