Two weeks ago I argued that LGBT voters should be prolife, if nothing else because the prolife movement protects babies from premature abortions based on genetic testing, and it won’t be long before we develop testing good enough to hint that a baby might grow up gay or transgender (despite the fact that genetics don’t always equal outcomes). I’d like to go one step further and say LGBT voters benefit far more from less government and a market economy, especially as a minority.
Let’s start with a real obvious point: government likes people to fall in nice, neat boxes, and those that don’t get treated unfairly. The US government is always primed to pick on minorities. Recent examples include persecution against Japanese-Americans during World War 2, even in Hawaii, or the disproportionate number of black Americans used for drug testing by the CIA. LGBT voters probably feel this right now whenever they travel, get an ID of some kind, or interact with the government in general.
Let’s take ID cards for a second. The government continues to increase the amount of information it demands from people to get an ID. This invasion of privacy hasn’t made a lot of headlines, but the fact that you can basically be denied the ability to fly unless you surrender a lot of information to the government is a bit concerning. Worse though, what if you’re a transgender individual in the middle of hormone treatment? Try explaining that to the “nice” TSA agent, who should be concerned about you carrying a bomb onboard the aircraft, but will instead use their position to hassle you at a checkpoint. Why are you treated like a criminal for non-criminal activities.
Less government equals less interactions equals more freedom to be yourself. Whether you’re a gun-loving firefighter or his transgender wife, you benefit from less government in your life. Unless you’re violating a law, the government doesn’t need to snoop in your affairs.
If the government isn’t sticking its nose where it doesn’t belong, other people are often trying to use it to that end, particularly with hate crime laws and lawsuits. The Masterpiece Cakeshop lawsuits highlighted this weaponization. Despite the fact that there were hundreds of bakeries to get cakes of all shapes and sizes, Charlie Craig and David Mullins went all the way to the Supreme Court, only to lose. The damage was done though, since Masterpiece Cakeshop lost around 40% of its business.
This weaponization isn’t a long term strategy, since it tends to come back around and bite you, because plenty of people will use this tactic to shut down LGBT businesses. We’re far better off with a free market because it automatically promotes an exchange of goods that is inevitably linked to an exchange of ideas. For example, its really hard to say you want to kill all gay people if you regularly interact with the gay owner of a restaurant that has great food. It’s difficult to say you think transgender individuals are all pedophiles when you find out your neighbor is a transgender woman and an upstanding citizen in your community. Just like having a black or Hispanic neighbor makes it harder to hold negative opinions about them (assuming they are good neighbors!), the same goes for interacting with LGBT individuals.
In fact, these regular interactions are far more powerful then any lawsuit. I would argue the Masterpiece lawsuits only further cement the idea that most LGBT individuals want to find ways to punish Christians.
Free association in a market economy and less government interference, by default, makes us all learn to work together. We’re all better served under these models.
This post represents the views of the author and not those of the Department of Defense, Department of the Navy, or any other government agency. Please be sure to purchase something from the author’s collection of books, since Christmas is right around the corner.
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