Thanks to the law permitting public initiatives in California, gay and lesbian people may soon be able to vote on the marriages of heterosexual people. It was, of course, the initiative process that brought us Proposition 8, that put gay marriage up for a popular vote and overturned the judicial legalization of such unions.
Now, a measure that would outlaw divorce among those heterosexually married folks could be headed for the 2012 ballot in California. Mercury News reports that “the 2012 California Marriage Protection Act has cleared a major legal milestone: Last week, the secretary of state’s office gave [John] Marcotte permission to start gathering signatures. To make the June 2012 ballot, he’ll need nearly 700,000 approved signatures by the spring of that year.”
The 38-year-old Marcotte has said such a measure is necessary to preserve marriage, as the anti-gay marriage folks say they want to do. Marcotte has complained “among other things that divorced teachers shouldn’t be allowed to teach his kids. He said there’s a reason people like his anti-divorce arguments so much: ‘I stole them from the Yes on 8 site.’ And he’s counting on support from groups who bankrolled the anti-gay-marriage initiative.”
Sadly, the head of the California Family Coalition did not comment to Mercury News, but its president, Ron Prentice, had previously called the idea “impractical.” So, despite the religious right’s dedication to preserving marriage and family, its leadership seems loathe to do it by actually forbidding divorce, which Jesus had said makes those who remarry into “adulterers.”
Marcotte said his initiative has the backing of many gays and lesbians, who are tired of having everyone else vote on their marriage status and would welcome the chance to return the favor. The ban itself has some leeway. While divorce would be gone, couples could still seek an annulment, but it must be for cause like bigamy, fraud, or incest. But as the San Diego News Network reports: “I don’t want to be married to you anymore” doesn’t count.
While the anti-gay marriage people may roll their eyes at such a suggestion, Marcotte’s measure makes several points clear. First, heterosexuals, who fight tooth and nail to keep gay people from getting married, make a mockery of the institution every single day, from Britney Spears’ hours-long marriage, to the skyrocketing divorce rate. Heterosexuals hardly take the institution of marriage seriously, and many anti-gay marriage proponents are themselves either divorced or remarried several times, like former Representative Bob Barr who wrote the federal Defense of Marriage Act (which he has since renounced). Perhaps this measure give them a new respect for marriage if getting out of one wasn’t so easy.
Secondly, it points up the hypocrisy of the religious right, whose arguments from scripture against homosexuality is not as iron-clad as they’d like, but Jesus was very clear that divorce is wrong and puts you in the sinful state of adultery when you remarry.
Thirdly, just the fact that people think it’s absurd for the idea of divorce to be settled by a majority vote shows the absurdity of any civil right being put up for a majority vote. I long for the day when people look back at this time in history and think, “What the hell were they thinking—putting anyone’s rights up for a majority vote?”
I, for one, support Marcotte and I wish I could be one of the 700,000 signatures he’ll now need to get this ban on the ballot. Even if it fails to get on the ballot, or fails at the ballot box, I hope the measure will help people to begin to see how completely ridiculous it is allow the majority to vote on the rights of anyone.
