A NEW DEFENSE OF MARRIAGE ACT

A couple of weeks ago we were in a meeting of progressive N.C. bloggers, and the subject of Senate Bill 13 came up, a Republican bill meant to force an amendment to the NC constitution outlawing same-sex marriage. One sage's opinion was that if the bill got considered in committee, it WOULD pass out to the full House, and if considered by the full House, it WOULD pass (with Democratic support, both times).

Such is the atmosphere in NC, said the sage, and such is the cowardice of many Democrats in the NC legislature.

But isn't there something we could do to highlight the cruel absurdity of throwing gay citizens under the proverbial bus for the sake of political expediency?

No one at the time had what seemed like the right antidote to religious extremists who want to make government as dopey as they are, but here it is, advanced by a group in Washington state, the Defense of Marriage Alliance. Apparently, they have managed to file an initiative with the Washington state legislature to require heterosexual couples to have kids within three years or else have their marriage annulled.

Brilliant.

Under the initiative, marriage would be limited to men and women who are able to have children. Couples would be required to prove they can have children in order to get a marriage license, and if they did not have children within three years, their marriage would be subject to annulment.

All other marriages would be defined as "unrecognized" and people in those marriages would be ineligible to receive any marriage benefits.

Get it?

"For many years, social conservatives have claimed that marriage exists solely for the purpose of procreation ... The time has come for these conservatives to be dosed with their own medicine," said an organizer of the Alliance. "If same-sex couples should be barred from marriage because they can not have children together, it follows that all couples who cannot or will not have children together should equally be barred from marriage."

Brilliant, we say.