From my legal perspective, I see issue of gay marriages or civil unions as one of civil rights.

The federal government’s civil rights laws prohibit discrimination against people based on race, age, or gender. So how can state legislatures legally discriminate against a class of people – homosexual couples – based on sameness of their gender?

Having raised this question for intellectual purposes only, I’ve got to admit that I’m not a big fan of civil rights, and I don’t defend them. In spite of their egalitarian motivations, they are a misnomer.

Civil rights are neither civil nor rights. They are privileges bestowed by government on one group of people, which always come at expense of equal rights of others.

Marriage privileges are civil rights. Both government and business give married people perks that rest of us don’t get and that we largely subsidize. Licensed married people get preferential tax rates, better employee benefits and legal protections. Advocates of gay marriages or civil unions want these privileges of marriage extended to gay couples.

I can’t say that I do … and it’s not because I’m against anyone’s sexual preferences. I don’t want government bestowing more privileges upon anyone.

Heck, if gay couples get civil-marriage rights, there will be one fewer disfavored class of people to subsidize taxes and insurance rates of married heterosexuals. How fair will that be on singles like me and ordinary cohabitants?

It’s one thing to exercise our natural rights to marry under God. It’s another to force others who are unlicensed to subsidize our behavior, hetero or otherwise.

We would be best to dismantle special interest privileges, not add to them. Besides, I wouldn’t wish government privileges upon anybody. They come with too much government servitude and accountability.

Marriage licenses grant state power to divide marital assets according to whims of General Assembly. I don’t understand why gay couples would want their relationship subject to our state legislators.

Ultimately I’d like to see all licensed people freed from their unnecessary commitments to government. This would include not only licensed married people, but also licensed attorneys, doctors, electricians and sports trainers.

About 21 years ago I was one of several thousand who publicly greeted then-owner Robert Irsay at Hoosier Dome when he brought his Colts franchise to town.

It’s hard now to believe that city of Indianapolis – with help of a county-wide hospitality tax granted by state General Assembly and a generous $25 million grant from Lilly Endowment – built an $82 million, 63,000-seat professional football stadium on pure speculation, without having a team to play in it.

Less than 13 years later, by time it was politically acceptable to mention it, Colts’ owner Jim Irsay appeared on national television to call for a new publicly funded stadium. As then-chairman of Libertarian Party of Marion County, I publicly denounced this idea. I asked how an $82 million public works project could become obsolete shortly more than a decade after it was built.

The straight and fundamental answer is that RCA Dome was built by three entities that had no experience in business of professional football: a local government, a state government and a tax-exempt foundation.

Why should we have expected anything but a no-frills building, one that had too few luxury suites and too few fancy club seats to turn an NFL team moderately profitable in modern age?

Relying on usual experts lacking imagination and foresight, government built a facility that was too small, and was neither expandable nor convertible. Worse, it tied project to special interest groups, such as downtown parking-lot owners.

But main problem with government-built stadiums like RCA Dome is that no one is really accountable for decisions once stadiums turn out to be inappropriate. The William Hudnut administration, which built Dome and brought Colts to town, was long gone before inadequacies of facility become apparent.