till death

Will Maggie Gallagher Support California’s Ban on Divorce?

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As the Courage Campaign fights to put a Prop 8 repeal on the 2010 ballot in California, one man is working to get a different sort of marriage-related proposition in front of voters: one that would ban divorce.

Sacramento’s John Marcotte, our new hero, would like everyone in the state to be forced to abide by the California Marriage Protection Act, which would truly protect the sanctity of marriage — that beautiful institution so many religious conservatives are fighting for — by forcing Californians to never be able to leave one. “It’s actually what I think is a logical extension of Prop 8, which was the California Marriage Protection Act,” says Marcotte. “(My initiative) would protect traditional marriages by banning divorce.”

Yes, this is a stunt. Marcotte may have launched RescueMarriage.org, but the married father of two is a satirist with a history of such pranks.

But that’s not really the issue, since he’s indeed filed the paperwork with the California Attorney General, and supposedly has a volunteer network in the works to collect the necessary signatures.

So do we really want Californians to be banned from divorce? Of course not. Not only would it keep our straight friends and loved ones from escaping doomed marriages, but we want the same ability to exit a legal marriage once we secure our own marriage rights.

But we’d love to see the National Organization for Marriage find a reason not to get behind the California Marriage Protection Act. While banning gay marriage may protect families in their eyes, certainly a law prohibiting divorce would do even greater wonders?

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