You Want Defense of Marriage? We'll Give You Defense of Marriage

My native state can beat up your native state. Consider the "Washington Defense of Marriage Alliance", who offer a modest proposal that would test whether citizens of the Evergreen State really agree with the logic of anti-marriage equality crowd:

The Washington Defense of Marriage Alliance seeks to defend equal marriage in this state by challenging the Washington Supreme Court’s ruling on Andersen v. King County. This decision, given in July 2006, declared that a “legitimate state interest” allows the Legislature to limit marriage to those couples able to have and raise children together. Because of this “legitimate state interest,” it is permissible to bar same-sex couples from legal marriage.

The way we are challenging Andersen is unusual: using the initiative, we are working to put the Court’s ruling into law. We will do this through three initiatives. The first would make procreation a requirement for legal marriage. The second would prohibit divorce or legal separation when there are children. The third would make the act of having a child together the legal equivalent of a marriage ceremony.

WDoMA is currently collecting signatures to put on the ballot Initiative 957, which would do the following:

• add the phrase, “who are capable of having children with one another” to the legal definition of marriage;


• require that couples married in Washington file proof of procreation within three years of the date of marriage or have their marriage automatically annulled;


• require that couples married out of state file proof of procreation within three years of the date of marriage or have their marriage classed as “unrecognized;”


• establish a process for filing proof of procreation; and
  make it a criminal act for people in an unrecognized marriage to receive marriage benefits.

Will I-957 make the ballot? It looks unlikely. But silly as it sounds, the WDoMA folks are deadly serious about civil rights - and about making the anti-gay lobby squirm:

By getting the initiatives passed, we hope the Supreme Court will strike them down as unconstitutional and thus weaken Andersen itself. And at the very least, it should be good fun to see the social conservatives who have long screamed that marriage exists for the sole purpose of procreation be forced to choke on their own rhetoric.

I'd like to see that! Why not give them a hand?

(Cross-posted at The Daily Gotham)

Labels: gay marriage, I-957, Washington State, Washington State Defense of Marriage Alliance

  ¶ Posted by Paul Curtis 5:13 PM