Sociological comments: Iberian Notes is not particularly thrilled about gay marriage, but doesn't see what the interest of the State in prohibiting it is. We believe in minimal government interference into people's personal lives, so if gays want to get married, that's fine with us.

We also don't see what the problem is with polygamy. If some Mormon schismatic wackjobs off in the mountains somewhere want to marry five different women, that's the business of the people involved. If they're all 18 and consenting, what's the problem? And why couldn't women have more than one husband?

By the way, we've in favor of gays in the military. All libertarian conservatives should be.

1) Everyone who wants to serve his country, gay or straight, who qualifies, should be allowed to.

2) It's in everyone's interest to have the best soldiers possible at each post. I don't want a good pilot or tank commander or intelligence officer or mechanic or linguist or sonarman or systems analyst or infantry grunt or whatever to be disqualified because he's gay. I want him out there working for our side. And if I were a soldier and got shot, I'd want the best doctors and nurses and medics to help me, and I wouldn't care about what they put in their mouths.

3) It's an economic equality thing. The Army is not a bad job, they provide valuable job training for the future, and they give soldiers money for college. (Of course, there are risks involved. Everyone knows what those are before they join.) Everyone qualified should have the right to enjoy this government-provided economic opportunity.

4) As for disrupting unit cohesion or whatever, they said that about blacks and women too, and things seem to have worked out pretty well. The thing about the military is that people must accept orders. If the order comes down that you don't discriminate against gays, everyone is going to have to obey it, just like they did when they were told they couldn't discriminate against blacks. If you are so homophobic that you can't obey orders, you shouldn't be in the military.

5) Ironically, "don't ask, don't tell" is counterproductive. The old argument against employing gays in sensitive positions was that they could be blackmailed, threatened with exposure. Well, if a person makes no secrets about his sexual orientation, if he can't be threatened, then what can he be blackmailed with?

6) Of course, we are against allowing serving soldiers, male or female, to have sex with each other on duty or on the base. That would cause unit cohesion problems, and it's why the military forbids adultery--the sergeant is doing the captain's husband, for example. Not permitted. Leads to problems. Wouldn't be prudent.