News
April 24, 2009
NICHOLAS ROOT / The Dartmouth Staff
Citing the continuing national debates over same-sex marriage and abortion, Dartmouth government professor Sonu Bedi argued that framing the debates in terms of conflicting rights hurts the quality of the discussion in his Thursday lecture, "Rejecting Rights: Reframing the Debate."
Bedi, who wrote a book on this issue, titled "Rejecting Rights," said that although rights represent the traditional way of ensuring democracy and liberty, they are not necessarily the best way to "limit the reach of the state."
"The focus ought to be on reasons, not rights," Bedi said.
Focusing on the reasons behind same-sex marriage prohibition, rather than the rights of homosexual couples, is a better way to ensure individual liberty, Bedi said.
One issue is that the push for rights for gay couples allows detractors to claim that the group is "getting special treatment," Bedi said.