Sacramento’s John Marcotte, the married father of two and professional satirist, needs to collect 694,000 signatures in just 150 days in order to get California Marriage Protection Act, his petition to ban divorce, in front of California voters in November. The secretary of state just gave him the go ahead o get started. Looks like the National Organization for Marriage’s summer bus tour needs to make a pit stop!
Dewayneinsd
Where do I sign? About time the Fundys get hit with their own hypocrisy! marriage should be banned period and CIVIL UNIONS be instituted in the US for all “commitments between men/women and same sex partners.
Marriage is a Religious exercises and with no place in a secular society.
Cam
Will NOM be spending millions for this? Will the Mormon Church? The Mormons have historically been very anti-divorce so why wouldn’t they send in millions to support this? Oh wait, thats right, they only want to attack OTHERS, they don’t want to ban something that they themselves might want to do some day.
Bob
No the Mormons don’t want to ban divorce. Why should they? They prefer to continue to add new wives when they get bored with old one.
Bareback Cuntessa
@DeWayneinSD: You have it 100% wrong. Well, 100% REVERSED.
Marriage is, and ALWAYS HAS BEEN, a social contract uniting the financial and socio-political interests of two parties. Until the Modern Era, the uniting parties were two FAMILIES– usually wealthy. Marriage is ONLY valid when it has been executed by a civil servant– or someone who has temporary notary powers bestowed upon him or her by the STATE (which is the case with US religious officiants, who ALL have to have state papers making them notaries).
The simple test of all that is: Where do you go to get a DIVORCE? To the civil courts. You CANNOT dissolve a valid marriage simply by going to church. Therefore, marriage is a civil contract. Governed by the STATE. And as legal, law-abiding, tax-paying citizens, we DEMAND our equal rights to enter into this CIVIL CONTRACT as guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment to the US Constitution.
Marriage in a place of worship is a social convention, historically used by those wealthy families to declare their union.
Poor people almost always engaged in common-law marriages until the Modern Era.
Marriage as the exercise of free will of two PEOPLE is absolutely a new concept. Marriage as a religious sacrament is a recent innovation of churches as a revenue generator. Marriage for love? Almost unknown until the Victorian era. The white wedding dress? It never indicated “virginity and purity”; it indicated “we’re rich enough to buy an expensive white dress that is guaranteed to get dirty but we don’t care because we’re richer than YOU, bwaa-HAHAHAHAHAHAAHAAAAAAA!!!!!”
So take your right-wing “marriage is a religious ceremony” bullshit talking point and lose it. IT’S A LIE.
Adrian
@Bareback Cuntessa – good points. have you read Public Vows: A History of Marriage and the Nation by Nancy F Cott.
It’s amazing how the contract of marriage has negativly affected Black, Asians, and Native Americans in US history. Oh and lets not forget the poor treatment of Women.
your right about “Marriage is, and ALWAYS HAS BEEN, a social contract uniting the financial and socio-political interests of two parties.”
I’m curious to find out the outcome of John Marcotte efforts.
mdthom
Every gay person in California should sign this petition and then get out an support it.
Shade
Mmmmmmmm I enjoy irony as much as the next person and it really will be lovely to watch fundamentalists squirm but… i don’t really want to deny people gay or straight the right to divorce (we do have a few thousand married gay people in this state).
I get spite, I do, it would be fun. I don’t think I could vote in favor of this.
Devon
I’m sure this will have no problem gaining the right number of signatures and passing in November.
I mean California’s fundies are so eager to protect the sanctity of marriage after all. And I’m sure it’s not like they’re all a bunch of raging hypocrites, only willing to “defend” marriage by taking away the rights of others…Right?
Syl
Hey, I’m all for it. Maybe they should amend it so only married couples with kids under the age of 18 can’t get divorced, except in cases where a spouse is violent, abusive, or criminally neglectful. No kids? Then you can just pack up and leave, the only two people involved were the two spouses . But as soon as you bring children into the equation the marriage ceases to be about what’s best for *you* and what’s best for the kids. I remember early half of the kids in my grade school had divorced parents, and that was at a freaking Catholic school!
B
My guess is that he’ll get hardly anyone to sign it but might sell a lot of tee shirts!
shanelle
Jesus had harsh words about adultery and divorce.
WWJD? sign the petition.
Divorce is a far greater breaker upper of marriages then the gheys. All these peoples obbsessioning about samesex marriage have they priorizing verry wrong.
On the record, divorce can be necessary, but this ban makes a good point for peoples to contemplate.
words: Shanelle
ideas: Goochi
music playing: Joan Baez
dessert plans: popsicles, organic, of course
lipgloss: gone since 7 p.m,
obiwan
Is the LDS church backing this initiative?
Michael
“Professional Satirist”. Say no more. Honestly, the Secretary of State should be shot. This inane ballot measure could cost Californians millions, and right now, we’re poorer than
Mississippi.
Schteve
@Michael: Are you kidding? The official fiscal analysis by the secretary of state says it would save millions annually from the removal of court proceedings. The state admits it would save money!
Cam
@Michael: said..
“Professional Satirist”. Say no more. Honestly, the Secretary of State should be shot. This inane ballot measure could cost Californians millions, and right now, we’re poorer than
Mississippi.
_____________________
Putting a measure on the CA. ballot costs the state nothing. It is the resonsibility of the citizen or group to come up with the signitures etc… Every election CA has hundreds of ballot initiatives. They HAVE to because overall the CA legislature is paralyzed and refuses to do much. So, this measure costs nothing to put on the ballot and would save the state money by freeing up tens of thousands of hours in court time.
obiwan
I understand a high percentage of new marriages end in divorce. I reside in one of the socially most conservative sections of the country(Oklahoma) and Tulsa has a very high divorce rate (reputed to be second only to Las Vegas). And you would believe that conservative evangelicals would be against divorce. My concern is that people will separate and start shacking up with others without legal divorce. These kind of relationships will not save families if this is the rationale for this referendum. And if individuals pay lip service to this law and decided to separate and cohabitate with a partner outside the confines of marriage, will these couples who are paying such lip service to this law be committing an illegal act? This is satire? There are those that believe divorce should not be allowed such as Christian Dominionists, Fundamentalists, and Roman Catholics, and conservative LDS followers. Impossible it might not get enough signatories to go on the ballot? Remember proposition 8 in 2008?