Making The Procreationists Put Up Or Shut Up

The bad news is I haven't posted much lately. The good news is there's no shortage of stuff to post. Going to be busy just keeping up.

Anyway, one of the favorite arguments against gay marriage is the notion that marriage is all about having kids and, since gay people (theoretically) can't have kids, they shouldn't enjoy the benefits of marriage.

This isn't a fringe argument, either. High courts in New York and Washington have actually said the marriage isn't about love or companionship or legal rights, but about procreating.

Okay, so the Washingtion Defense Of Marriage Alliance is pushing the issue. They're pressing to put on the state ballot an initiative requiring heterosexual couples to have children or have their marraiges decertified, among other things.

Here's Initiative 957 in a nutshell:

If passed by Washington voters, the Defense of Marriage Initiative would:

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
benefits.

The WDMA admits they're pushing a ridiculous agenda.

Absurd? Very. But there is a rational basis for this absurdity. By floating the initiatives, we hope to prompt discussion about the many misguided assumptions which make up the Andersen ruling. 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 admire their ingenuity, but the execution is flawed. People don't like being called on their hypocrisy, so I fear that Initiative 957 will die a quick death and it won't even make it to the ballot. Especially since the WDMA admits it's promoting a pro-gay marriage agenda.

They'd be better off if they'd pretended to be funded by Holy Terrors and claimed to be an ANTI-gay marriage group. THAT would get them backing.