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.
How about we take this to the next level?
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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?
rudy
Get it on the ballot.
Anything to run California’s ballot initiatives into the ground, and the public cries “no more.”
On paper it sounds like “real democracy,” but in reality, it’s been more of a boon to demagoguery.
Jock6576
AMEN!!!! Let’s watch the crazies choke on this little chestnut. Remember, single parents are HORRIBLE for children… just like the gays are horrible for this kids. I was hoping someone would do this!!
Cam
LOL Nice, let the hypocrites speak out on THIS one!
robert
I’m all for it. Now lets see that cunt Maggie Gallagher squirm, the once unwed mother who had pre-marital sex, fucking hypocritical bigot bitch.
Kid A
haha this is great, hope it gets some momentum behind it
alan brickman
About time!!! good!!
Jaroslaw
Ok, this is a stunt, but SOMEBODY (Rachel Maddow, Cooper Anderson or any anchor on the major news media) should MAKE these “religious” hypocrites answer why they won’t get behind this initiative!
Matt
I’ll vote for it!
Chitown Kev
I’m cosigning everybody.
The bigots want to protect marriage, huh?
robert
Now, the Catholic cult should be 100% behind this one, lets see if they and their Knights of Columbus henchmen get on board as they did to make Prop. H8 succeed. There are millions of catholic cultists in California, so John Marcotte shouldn’t have any problem getting signatures. They’ve succeeded getting more than enough signatures in Maine, so there’s no reason why this can’t succeed in California. I’d love to see the right wingers squirm.
Maybe we should find out where we can email Marcotte and give him our unexpected symbolic support. That would surely put the cat among the pigeons.
Disgusted American
seriously this should get all kinds of funds from the bigots,right? Knights of Columbus,MOrmons..? I mean,,,,they were ONLY trying to protect marriage from gays – right? So the logical answer to REALLY protect marriage – NO DIVORCE! Ahh wish I could sign.
robert
If I were John Marcotte, I’d lobby every republican senator and congressman for their signatures to really expose the hypocrisy and the double standard of their party and I bet he wouldn’t even get 50% of them; next,publish their names. Then, I’d work on the religious cults, an easier constituency for support. We as a group should give symbolic support for it to outline the absurdity of expanding Prop. H8 but to give back the haters a taste of their own medicine.
YellowRanger
I wish I lived in California, purely so I could vote for this. I’ve been hoping for someone to do this for the longest time…When it inevitably fails, it’ll expose just what sort of hypocrites these “hurr durr protect teh sanctity of marriege durr hurr hur” bigots are.
Greg Theron
I live in CA and would SO vote for this!
Flex
Ban divorce? That would really fuck up the “institute of marriage!”
robert
@Flex:
Bring it on I say, then that would really fuck up the milder religious bigots altogether, the ones who are ok with divorce. I’d love to see it happen and see the infighting it would induce, something they couldn’t blame on gays for a change.
Jason
The only thing that fat bitch can support is bigotry and Lane Bryant.
Ian
If this doesn’t work, then the next thing is to recriminalise adultery …
Carsen Tyler
Hahaha you know what the Catholics would totally be behind this. I definitely can see it; I work at a Parish in San Francisco, and I know the guy who donated a crap load of the money and Yes on 8 posters/ bumper stickers. He always equated divorce as damaging gay marriage to children. I can definitely see him getting behind that.
UWSguy
I’d be glad to donate to this cause.
PopSnap
Hollllllllyyyyyy shit, this is like having a good idea for a video game or movie and talking about it with your friends, then you find out that they are actually making it.
Publicity is the key, people! Twitter, facebook, mail news stations. Expose the fundie bigots’ hypocrisy.
McBoston
it is already banned in the Phillipines who are devout Catholics yet it does create an underground mistress society in the country or maybe not so underground-like in France it is considered normal to have a Mistress but burgouise to talk about it. Heterosexual marriages have many divorces it’s true and CA is the divorce capital of the U.S. but really-how many relationships are gays in before they finally “settle” and do they really? How long is the average gay/lesbian relationship last on average? Has anyone ever done a survey? I would venture a guess from the gay friends I have that even though we are in the era of AIDS that there are a lot more partners that gays and lesbians have before getting “married”. How many divorces do you think will be created by gay marriages? More, less, the same as straight people? I would say on the safe side that the percentages would still be about the same which would now mean strange new territory for divorce attorneys and who really gets what assets and should a man who has effectively been a “wife” never working get alimony? Very confusing stuff indeed but something to think about. Just wondering what others think about this…
robert
@McBoston:
Divorce is not banned in France or even Italy for that matter. Both countries don’t have state religion, Italy disestablished catholicism during the 80s, both overwhelmingly catholic countries.
As to your guess that gays have far more sex partners before getting married is just that, a guess, but a view that right wing religious wackos use to denigrate our lives and deny us our rights. They have no reliable, documented evidence for that either. In my case, I happen to know more monogamous gay couples than I do promiscuous gay people. Several gay couples I know have been together more than 35 years in one instance, the rest ranging from 10-28 years, one of those couples is legally married for almost five years. None of them are promiscuous. However, I have several straight gay friendly friends, men and women who in fact sleep around. So you have to be very careful when you start “guessing” or making assumptions about a specific group of people.
Take a look at the number of children placed in foster care across this country, the products of heterosexuals, not gays, some married, some not, something they can never pin on us, some of that could be attributed to promiscuity when its the case of unmarried people, although there are married people who father children with others too. Look at the soaring birth rate around the world, another straight phenomenon, much of it responsible for the poverty that has affected every nation. You would have to include all of that if you’re going to do a comparative survey of promiscuity between the two orientations and I think straights would come out as the worst offenders, per capita, worldwide.
janet bajan
see: rescuemarriage.org
and:http://www.facebook.com/home.php#/pages/2010-California-Protection-of-Marriage-Act/126022448457?ref=nf