Rand Paul on the Supreme Court Decision and Same Sex Marriage

The poll results must be in. Rand Paul is out with an essay at TIME discussing his views on same sex marriage and last week's Supreme Court decision, As per usual with Rand essays, this one  is pretty difficult to figure out.

After reading it in its entirety, I came away with the same experience I come across with a transgender, who I  can't quite figure out  is a man trying to be a woman or a woman trying to be a man. The signals are too damn mixed. And so it is with Rand in his essay.

At times Rand sounds almost libertarian in the essay, suggesting that government should not be involved in marriages at all:

Perhaps the time has come to examine whether or not governmental recognition of marriage is a good idea, for either party.

At other points in the essay, it seems as though he only has a problem with the definition the government, via the Supreme Court, is now giving to marriage:

The government should not prevent people from making contracts but that does not mean that the government must confer a special imprimatur upon a new definition of marriage.

And at times, Rand reverts to a view that marriage rules should be of local government design rather than federal.:

Our founding fathers went to the local courthouse to be married, not to Washington, D.C.

I’ve often said I don’t want my guns or my marriage registered in Washington.

And then there is the twist that lumps two opposing Rand views, where Rand seems to come out in favor of state definitions of marriage BUT which provides equal rights to all. What is he saying here that states must provide equal rights to all couples but do not have to recognize all couples? How does that work?

State legislatures are entitled to express their preference for traditional marriage, so long as the equal rights of same-sex couples are protected.

He concludes with an apparent curtsy to the religious right and tells us that Alexander Hamilton's influenced Constitution came down from God:

The Constitution was written by wise men who were raised up by God for that very purpose. There is a reason ours was the first where rights came from our creator and therefore could not be taken away by government. Government was instituted to protect them.

We have gotten away from that idea. Too far away. We must turn back. To protect our rights we must understand who granted them and who can help us restore them.

 -RW