Get off my lawn.

Yesterday, the Supreme Court handed down a 5-4 decision finding that same-sex marriages are legal all over the US, regardless of each particular state's laws.

I decided to wait for the inevitable chaotic celebrations and denunciations to die down a bit, so I left the TV on "Dirty Jobs" or "Star Trek" or whatever else wouldn't have non-stop news coverage from any side of the ideological divide.

I think that I have been very consistently small-"L" libertarian in my views concerning most social issues. I believe that the federal government needs to protect the country's borders and mobilize our military to ensure our country is well-protected. I believe that maintaining some awesome national parks is within their purview. And I believe they should maintain the interstate highway system effectively and efficiently. I think that a centralized FBI that coordinates law-enforcement issues and helps states share information about crimes and evidence is necessary. I believe they should make sure that no state infringes on an individual's right to own and/or carry arms. Other than that, I think they need to get off my lawn (meaning, they need to get out of our lives and our business).

The federal government should have ZERO involvement in education. At the MOST, a state should be able to decide for itself if it wishes to provide public education and how that should be administered... but even then, it should be a buffet rather than a force-feed. Offer the education. Anyone who wants it can come get it. Anyone who doesn't? They can live with the consequences. Colleges and universities should receive ZERO federal funds, and they should be able to determine for themselves how they accept students... state-funded colleges adhere to their state's requirements. If you don't meet the requirements, you study harder until you pass their test. You don't get to pitch a fit and make them change their standards. The onus is on YOU, the individual, to achieve to the level of your choosing.

The federal government should have ZERO involvement in personal relationships of any kind. This means marriage, civil unions, or otherwise. It is none of the federal government's business who you love, choose to live with, etc. It is also none of the federal government's business who you choose to sell or buy from, where you choose to live (or who you choose to rent your property to), or what happens to you if you have a hurricane or a wildfire or tornado. People who need outside help should either rely on themselves or rely on their neighbors or their family. Period. If Chuck and Steve want to go to Metropolitan Church and get married, that's between them and Metropolitan Church. It's none of my business. If Fellowship Church believes that same-sex relationships are not permitted in their belief system, that's their right. And if Joe the Baker doesn't want to make a cake for someone, it shouldn't matter WHY. He has a right to choose who he does business with. If it makes enough people dislike him, he will lose business and suffer the consequences.

I am, therefore, perpetually disgusted that nine black-robed individuals in Washington, DC continue to have so much sway over my personal life. ObamaCare is an affront to me. Federal involvement in personal relationships is an affront to me. But I am, apparently, in the minority these days. [shrug] 

EDIT: I believe that Justice Antonin Scalia, in his written dissent, agrees with me:

I write sepa­rately to call attention to this Court’s threat to American democracy. 

The substance of today’s decree is not of immense personal importance to me. The law can recognize as mar­riage whatever sexual attachments and living arrange­ments it wishes, and can accord them favorable civil consequences, from tax treatment to rights of inheritance. 

Those civil consequences—and the public approval that conferring the name of marriage evidences—can perhaps have adverse social effects, but no more adverse than the effects of many other controversial laws. So it is not of special importance to me what the law says about mar­riage. It is of overwhelming importance, however, who it is that rules me. 

Today’s decree says that my Ruler, and the Ruler of 320 million Americans coast-to-coast, is a majority of the nine lawyers on the Supreme Court. The opinion in these cases is the furthest extension in fact—and the furthest extension one can even imagine—of the Court’s claimed power to create “liberties” that the Consti­tution and its Amendments neglect to mention. 

This practice of constitutional revision by an unelected commit­tee of nine, always accompanied (as it is today) by extrav­agant praise of liberty, robs the People of the most im­portant liberty they asserted in the Declaration of Independence and won in the Revolution of 1776: the freedom to govern themselves.

(I added the bold because THIS.)