Yesterday was the Massachusetts primary election. The only thing really going on that needs a primary is the race for our state representative. There is the incumbent Democrat and a challenger Democrat and there are a lot of signs all around for both of them, so this primary election is really to decide which of them gets the job, since this state has no Republicans.

But wait! A week or so ago, there was a flyer under Shelly's car's windshield promoting the candidacy of a Republican for state representative! The two party system lives! Of course, he's the only Republican running, so voting for him in a primary election is kind of pointless, and it's a closed primary (registered Republicans like me and Shelly can only vote for Republicans), so I didn't really want to vote. But Shelly convinced me that even though it's a Saddam-esque one-candidate election, it's our civic duty, and more importantly, it will show "them" (who?) that there are Republicans in Cambridge, and they vote.

In front of the voting place, we were stopped by a very nice lady who wanted to know our position on the same-sex marriage amendment. We told her politely that we were in favor of the amendment, and she told us that she has family members who have gotten into homosexual relationships and therefore she's come to understand a little better (better than we do, she implied), so she's looking for opponents to the amendment. She did offer to take our names down as people her group shouldn't bother. That was nice. It was a very polite, even friendly exchange on an issue which heats up emotions like little else around here. I was pleased. We went in and voted for the only name on the ballot.

Afterwards, I got to wondering why it is that this Republican candidate advertises himself as pro-choice, and in favor of same-sex marriage. Those are not traditional Republican stances. Both of the Democrats running, of course, are in favor of same-sex marriage, so I felt like my voice was quite stifled. The amendment that will undo the Supreme Judicial Court's history-changing fiat has to pass the state legislature one more time before it goes to the voters in 2006, so it is important that we elect representatives who represent our positions on that issue. And all three candidates for the job have the same position--the one I oppose.

So I went to the internet and I emailed the Republican candidate. I told him it was refreshing to have a non-Democrat candidate in Cambridge, but expressed concern that his positions didn't line up with mine or those of the Republican party at large. If he's really trying to get another voice involved in the one-sided politics around here, shouldn't he be espousing views different from those of the established party?

He quickly emailed me back and explained to me that he's a libertarian Republican and that he doesn't "think the government should be in the social engineering business." He cited examples of the changing conception of marriage over the last century (wives couldn't own property, marital rape wasn't a crime, etc.) and said that same-sex marriage is just one more change in the way we think about marriage. "The 'sanctity of marriage,'" he said, "is mostly nonsense." Little did he know that he was talking to a Harvard Law student who has studied family law and has authored a forthcoming article on how the government should interact with marriage in the next issue of Family Law Quarterly (I'll talk about that later). But no matter.

So I guess his positions on same-sex marriage and abortion are consistent with a libertarian ideology. The government shouldn't tell us whom we can or can't marry, and it shouldn't restrict us from doing whatever we want to our fetuses. Not a position that I agree with, but a consistent one, and one different from the traditional Democratic position, even if it arrives at the same result.

The problem with this position is the slippery slope. By his standards, I should be able to marry my dead dog if I want. Polygamy is definitely legal. What's the point of marriage, anyway?

You can't call government sanction of marriage "social engineering." Marriage does matter to the government. Therefore, it does matter whom the government recognizes as married. There are a lot of reasons why the government needs to know whom, if anyone, you're married to. Particularly tax and inheritance reasons. This dude would probably say we should get rid of all those regulations, too.

And as long as we're dreaming, I'd like a pony.