Iowa’s highest court recently legalized gay marriage and Vermont’s legislature was the first state to legalize it via the vote. So social conservatives can’t cry “judicial activism” when it comes to Vermont.

And even the Midwest is becoming enlightened on gay marriage.

The inexorable march of gay marriage continues. Connecticut and Massachusetts already have it. Four states down, 46 to go. I’ll wager in 20 years, it’ll be legal in all 50 states, just like it took interracial marriage many years to become universally legal.

For people under 30, gay marriage is a non-issue. To them, it’s obvious gay marriage should be legal. It violates equal protection to give marital benefits (inheritance rights, divorce rights, tax advantages, medical visitation rights, etc.) only to straights. Could we have food stamps only for heteros? I think not.

If the government is going to give out benefits — it doesn’t have to, but if it chooses to do so — it must be equal about it. That’s the law.

The ultimate solution would be a separation of marriage and state whereby marriage was a purely private or religious act with no state registration. This is the way it used to be until the mid-1800’s when registering marriages with the government began. But before this time, many couples just wrote their name in the family Bible and didn’t register with the state. In 1923, the Feds passed the Uniform Marriage License Act and by 1929, every state in the Union had adopted marriage license laws.

The gay marriage issue melts away when marriage is privatized. Just like the conflict over teaching evolution in schools does. Without government schools, creationism becomes a non-issue as parents just send their kids to a school that teaches their values, and the endless evolution-creation battles evaporate. It’s only when government gets involved and makes “public” an area of private social life, do conflicts arise because a one-size-fits-all model must be adopted.

Separation of church and state, how about a separation of marriage and state?