REPRESENTATIVE BOB BARR (1948–)

 

When Congressman Bob Barr (R-Georgia, 1995–2003) authored and introduced the Defense of Marriage Act in May 1996, he was one of the most conservative—and frequently divorced—lawmakers in Congress. His inability to defend his own marriages was the least of his contradictions. He was a small-government, antiregulation conservative advocating that the federal government be in the marriage business. Fifteen years later, out of office and perhaps with time to think, he delivered a major renunciation of DOMA and “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.” The audience? The Log Cabin Republicans, the most established group of gay rights lobbyists who are also small-government conservatives.

In his 2011 speech, Barr repeatedly argued that almost any law that expands government should be opposed, on the grounds that government is in essential conflict with individual liberty. “Some degree of government is necessary,” he stated. But “any degree of government that is more than necessary itself intrudes on these rights, and should (must) be opposed, [including] those laws limiting personal choices and relationships that do not harm others.”

Taking a dim view of licensing requirements for any activities, Barr asked the crowd, “Why do individuals need the government’s permission to marry?” and noted a cumbersome morass of laws and regulations around marriage that confer “more than 1,100 rights, duties, and entitlements granted only with the state’s permission.” Our Bill of Rights protects “the fundamental freedom to possess and act on one’s own private beliefs and desires; to live one’s life as one wishes. This reflects the fundamental right to privacy . . .” Speaking of such fundamentals, Barr (a lawyer) noted that the Supreme Court consistently “held that ‘marriage’ is a fundamental right” in Loving v. Virginia (which struck down bans on interracial marriage in 1967), Zablocki v.Redhail (1978), and Turner v. Safley (which, in 1987, ruled that prisoners have the right to marry). Barr quoted the court in Zablocki v. Redhail, noting:

 

[T]he right to marry is of fundamental importance for all individuals. It is not surprising that the decision to marry has been placed on the same level of importance as decisions relating to procreation, childbirth, child rearing, and family relationships. As the facts of this case illustrate, it would make little sense to recognize a right of privacy with respect to other matters of family life and not with respect to the decision to enter the relationship that is the foundation of the family in our society.

 

Barr, who in 2013 was running for Congress again, concluded that “. . . using the collective power of the state to do what individuals cannot do—impose the will of one group of people on another set of people—is truly immoral.”