Wednesday, October 14, 2009
Real Marriage Protection
Posted by David Winkler-Schmit on Wed, Oct 14, 2009 at 5:22 PM
- Move over Katherine Spaht and Tony Perkins, you’ve got nothing on John Marcotte. Spaht and Perkins, the dynamic duo of Louisiana’s Covenant Marriage Law, must be impressed with California’s John Marcotte, who is proposing the 2010 California Protection Act, which would make divorce illegal in California.
- Here’s what Marcotte has to say about his proposal:
In 2009, California passed the “California Protection of Marriage Amendment,” or “Prop 8.” Proposition 8 bravely protected the institution of traditional marriage by making sure that gay people could not participate in it.
I loved Proposition 8, but felt it did not go far enough. So fresh from the office of our legal counsel, I present the 2010 California Protection of Marriage Act.
SECTION 1. Title. This act shall be known as the “2010 California Marriage Protection Act.”
- SECTION 2. Section 7.6 is added to Article I of the California Constitution, to read:
No party to any marriage shall be restored to the state of an unmarried person during the lifetime of the other party unless the marriage is void or voidable, as set forth in Part 2 of Division 6 of the Family Code.
Comments (5)
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I need clarification: are you against any union between homosexuals, or just against it using the word "marriage"? If it's the word, there's no point. First, it's just a word. Secondly, many people's arguments say that marriage is a union between a man and a woman in the eyes of God (no matter your religion). Tell me why, then, is there a legal marriage recognized by the state? If "marriage" is only a religious act, then, technically, heterosexual marriages performed by judges are invalid by that logic. Look, gays want to marry (or have a civil union, if you prefer) just for the same benefits of taxes, insurance, etc. that us heterosexuals get. It has nothing to do with heterosexuals at all. It is not to corrupt or damage heterosexual marriage. What really needs to be done to save heterosexual marriage? Stop the abuse. Stop the adultery. Stop the fly-by-night weddings that celebrities have. People like David Vitter argue for the "sanctity of marriage" but then go to prostitutes. Hardly seems like he was preserving the sanctity of anything. The whole argument seems like a waste of time. Gays will always exist, regardless of what anyone else wants. It's time we focused on REAL issues and REAL problems in this country, like the lack of privacy and freedom the government tries to bestow on us. Or the ever-increasing taxes. Or high crime rates. Or the fact that major corporations can get handouts and small businesses get the shaft. Or that our levee system is a joke. Why worry about something that DOES NOT directly affect you when there are bigger issues that actually DO affect you directly?
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Actually, Geoff, it looks like all of that above "Is this the kind of legislation we need to save marriage in America?" and below the quotation is also part of what John Marcotte had to say, not what DAVID had to say. Might want to correct that on the post, there, David. And California has much, much better things to do than to be attempting to ban divorce - like shoring up its own failing economy, for starters, and knocking down Prop 8 for good.
Done and done, liprap. The blog software here can be a bit maddening. You know that Marcotte is joking, yes?
This would be better satire if the proposal merely eliminated no-fault divorce, which was the legal regime prior to the 1960's. Fault divorce is consistent with Protestant interpretations of scripture (the Catholic Church, on the other hand, requires proof of some major deficiency in a marriage from the outset for an annullment). The proposal is far more extreme than is required to restore the traditional role for divorce. The proposal is also poorly drafted. There's no need to exclude void marriages, because they were never marriages at all and can have no legal consequences. That having been said, I certainly agree that it's extremely hypocritical to oppose gay marriage on grounds that it destroys traditional marriage and nevertheless support no-fault divorce.
