Oct 16th, 2009
You said “Till death do us part…”
…and you’re not dead yet.
Such is the argument made by the folks over at Rescue Marriage, who have authored the 2010 California Marriage Protection Act. Inspired by the passage of California’s Proposition 8, which was promoted and funded by the Protect Marriage camp to “restore marriage and protect California children,” Rescue Marriage founder John Marcotte realized that truly protecting marriage meant going well beyond limiting its legal status to heterosexuals.
Marcotte sees the primary threat to marriage as the dissolution thereof, and therefore seeks to protect the sanctity of marriage by outlawing divorce in the state of California.
To help get the word out, Marcotte started the Rescue Marriage T-shirt shop so that supporters can show the world that they truly stand behind government-mandated marriage protection.
We spoke with Marcotte, and asked him whether or not he thought this bill would pass. His answer: “Proposition 8 passed on the grounds that it protects traditional marriage and our children, so I don’t see any reason that this bill – which truly protects marriage by preventing its demise – wouldn’t pass. I mean, if all the people who voted for Proposition 8 don’t vote for this, they’d be hypocrites. You don’t think that California voters are hypocrites, do you?”
The Rescue Marriage camp has organized a Wedding March on the Capitol to be held on November 14th, 2009. The march invites all of us to “Participate in democracy the American way: by shouting angrily, using inflammatory rhetoric and memorizing jingoistic slogans to chant or misspell on signs.”
Whether the people of California will take this next step in preserving traditional marriage has yet to be seen. Some residents have expressed that banning divorce infringes on their civil rights; to those people, Marcotte says, “Sometimes other people have to give up their rights in order to protect my idea of traditional marriage.”
UPDATE: Rescue Marriage has a new Public Service Announcement to explain the issue:
Good for them. The world needs something like this.
If you don’t agree with gay marriage, don’t have one. If you don’t believe in divorce, don’t get one. Leave the rest of us the hell alone!
Perhaps banning divorce in California would serve a useful function. Additional productive people would join the mass exodus from the state to obtain a divorce. With no one left behind to fund expensive “liberal politics as usual” in California. Perhaps some positive political changes would occur there and the citizens would have less of their wealth confiscated by local government for programs they neither want nor need.
I do not think that divorce should be outlawed, there are some very good reasons people leave one another, but instead I think that people should have to be together a certain amount of time before they get married. For example somehow register when you get engaged so they know the reality of how long you have been together before you get married. So that way you know what the hell your really getting yourself into.
agreed agreed Julie.
I’m a little amazed that people can’t see that this is mocking the fact that a big hoopla was made over “protecting” marriage from *gasp* gay people but people would get all up in arms if someone actually protected marriage in the basest sense. Probably because it doesn’t institutionalize discrimination.
“Sometimes other people have to give up their rights in order to protect my idea of traditional marriage.”
……..
He can’t give up his right of squeamishness so people can stay with others they like or leave others they dislike? Jackass.
I love, love, LOVE this guy. Marriage is threatened by gays, right? Think about the fact that a lot of you are on your second one…and celebs get divorced all the time. You want to take away the rights of others? Give up your own.
Oh, btw, if you actually think he’s serious, check out his website. Fishsticks, take your comment and apply it to pro-Prop 8 folks. You’ll see his point.
[...] That man is John Marcotte of Rescue Marriage, who was repelled by Proposition 8 due to its inability to actually protect traditional marriage from anything but gay people. Marcotte notes that the true enemy of marriage is divorce, and therefore seeks to save the institution by outlawing divorce in the state of California. [...]
Prop 8 does not protect marriage! This bill will! People get divorced too easy and they marry for the wrong reasons- this will help! I get it!