Requiring married couples to have children?

February 6, 2007

Last summer, the Washington state Supreme Court upheld a ban on same-sex marriage in a ruling that emphasized procreation as a rationale. The 5-4 opinion, written by Justice Barbara Madsen, concluded that “limiting marriage to opposite-sex couples furthers the state’s interests in procreation and encouraging families with a mother and father and children biologically related to both.”

With this in mind, critics of the ruling have unveiled a provocative new idea. (via Ed Stephan)

Proponents of same-sex marriage have introduced an initiative that would put a whole new twist on traditional unions between men and women: It would require heterosexual couples to have kids within three years or else have their marriages annulled. […]

Under I-957, marriage would be limited to men and women who are able to have children. Couples would be required to prove they can have children to get a marriage license, and if they did not have children within three years, their marriages would be subject to annulment.

All other marriages would be defined as “unrecognized” and people in them would be ineligible to receive any marriage benefits.

Now, it’s important to remember that this is little more than a stunt. The people behind the initiative refer to their own proposal as “political street theater” and “very…absurd,” and admit they have no intention of having it become law. But, proponents argue, “[T]here is a rational basis for this absurdity. By floating the initiatives, we hope to prompt discussion about the many misguided assumptions” underlying the state Supreme Court’s ruling.

In general, I disapprove of using the political process to play games or prove a point, but proponents of Initiative 957 have a point, don’t they?

Gadow said that if the group’s initiatives were passed, the Supreme Court would be forced to strike them down as unconstitutional, which he believes would weaken the original ruling upholding the Defense of Marriage Act. […]

Gadow said the [court’s] argument is unfair when you’re dealing with same-sex couples who are unable to have children together.

“What we are trying to do is display the discrimination that is at the heart of last year’s ruling,” he said.

In case there was any doubt, this measure isn’t going anywhere fast. Lawmakers have denounced it, activist groups hate it, and the in-state media is already mocking it. Supporters of I-957 must gather at least 224,800 valid signatures by July 6 to put it on the November ballot. That seems pretty unlikely.

Still, it’s some clever outside-the-box thinking.

It’s a shame I don’t live in Washington state anymore. I’d sign it in a heartbeat.

  • i like it! in fact, i’d extend it even further. everyone wishing to get married must be tested to see if they can have children or not. can’t have kids? tough shit, you can’t get married. after all if it’s for procreation………

    take their own words and give em right back to em……

  • furthers the state’s interests in procreation and encouraging families with a mother and father and children biologically related to both.”

    And why is procreation in the state’s interests?

  • “In general, I disapprove of using the political process to play games or prove a point…”

    However, that seems to be a popular and huge tactic of the far right, and of gay-bashers and anti-choicers in particular. So, why not.

  • Reductio ad absurdum. Take the argument to its absurd conclusion. It may be street theater, but sometimes you need to show that the serious people making serious decisions used flawed logic and put forth a crappy ruling.

    “furthers the state’s interests in procreation”

    I can see the border sign when entering or leaving the state of Washington: “Thanks for visiting Washington and procreating.” … Or maybe the new state motto should become, “What happens in Washington gets born.”

  • Why not go farther – we could require all married couples to be certified members of an approved religious institution as well. Since marriage and church form the basis of American society, nobody who isn’t a good Christian can be allowed to marry, lest they raise their children to be America-hating heathens who don’t support our troops.

    (tongue planted VERY firmly in cheek)

    Eeyore

  • And why is procreation in the state’s interests?

    From one of the Washington State supreme court justices: “The legislature was entitled to believe that limiting marriage to opposite-sex couples furthers the State’s legitimate interests in procreation and the well-being of children.” Your argument, if this is an argument and not just a question, is with the Washington State legislature.

  • In general, I disapprove of using the political process to play games or prove a point…

    How can you say such a thing when one of our two major political parties is dedicated to nothing else?

  • Wasn’t it John Gibson who last year said the US needed more white chilrdren? I’d think he and other like-minded raving lunatics would support this in a hearbeat, as long as it’s the “right” people (i.e.; white, conservative, middle class or higher) procreating.

  • Let’s make them sign statements swearing they never had or had a partner who had an abortion. I mean if they want to be pro family, we can’t have abortion mongers trying to get married.

    They will also sign a statement giving up their rights to use birth control. This is all such retarded non-sense, why not go for broke.

  • Gadow said that if the group’s initiatives were passed, the Supreme Court would be forced to strike them down as unconstitutional…

    Forced? I wouldn’t be so sure — either the WA court or the SCOTUS. After all, the justices have already laid the groundwork, haven’t they??

    I worry about a backlash. You always hear about how gay marriage will lead to the destruction of marriages. Well, now they’re out to dissolve your marriage, Mr. & Mrs. Dink Childless!

  • The SC ruling was absurd, and if a theatrical approach is needed to point that out, so be it.

    I would offer an amendment, however, to help the state further it’s goal of promoting “families with a mother and father and children biologically related to both.” No divorces. Those in disfunctional marriages should pray that god keeps them from killing each other. We can all pray for the kids.

  • I disagree with this proposal. If a couple is childless after 3 years but can document visits with a fertility specialist, their marriage should not be annulled. Let’s be compassionate, folks.

  • Since the ruling states that “limiting marriage to opposite-sex couples furthers the state’s interests in procreation and encouraging families with a mother and father and children biologically related to both.”, we should also get rid of the adoption process as well, right? Plus we should never let people divorce who have children.

    What a bunch of asshats are running this asylum.

  • encouraging families with a mother and father and children biologically related to both.

    Damn straight. And we shouldn’t be satisfied with half-measures. I say we force all unwed mothers to marry their child’s father or both face jail. And, per beep52, forbid them from divorcing too. Enough namby-pamby. Remember, we have to do it for the children!

  • “I say we force all unwed mothers to marry their child’s father or both face jail. And, per beep52, forbid them from divorcing too.”

    And if either father or mother or both are already married to someone else, then they must accept the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, or some similar religion that allows multiple partners, as their religion from that point on.

  • And why is procreation in the state’s interests?
    [Dale]

    Have you ever read Jonathan Swift’s A Modest Proposal? In case of a famine, WA wants to be prepared.

    The wording of the ruling is very sloppy, and could easily be interpreted to mean divorced couples should not procreate. 100% crap. But I’m glad to see it was a close decision.

    The initiative is a fitting response to a ridiculous ruling and the world needs more lampoon-smiths. If you can’t beat ’em, mock ’em, I always say. Does anyone remember LAW (Ladies Against Women)? Hilarious!

  • Aargh. I got my post eaten.

    Anyways, thinking GOP-wise:

    Can I hire a substitute, like in the Civil War era draft? It would make useful social capital out of all those single-mother-scary-brown-out-of-wedlock-no-self-control babies….

  • Required children? WTF? You actually want these freakazoid wingnuts to have MORE children? More malnourished; more neglected, abandoned, and abused; more fight-n-die-for-God children? You want to “increase the surplus population?” Make “NascarMan” the mainstream?

    You all—each and every one of you—need to be tied to a gasoline pinata, and beaten with a lit torch. Especially the ones in Washington state who ought to know by now that the Rabid Theocratic Reactionaries in that part of the planet will draw the unholy conclusion that, since the Liberal/Progressive evildoers are trying to outbreed them, that they must have more children to counter the attempt. It’ll be like a nuclear weapons race and the Hitler Youth combined. People will be “breeding cannon-fodder for Jee-Zuz.”

    Now put away the Flash Gordon ray guns, and take off those silly tin-foil hats. You’re becoming scary….

  • Why limit the over the top craziness to conservatives. I think this is fantastic. If reproduction is a pillar of marriage then we need to defend it (reproduction) as strongly as we defend marriage. Plus, people who are infertile would basically have their genetic problems removed from the “Class A” gene pool. We can create an whold underclass of children. We can keep them from public schools and out of public housing. We can close all fertility clinics and get rid of all that creating life BS. Where is Dobson? He should think this is ideal!

  • This is the best idea I’ve heard in a long time. Who cares if, as the Everett Herald said, that spending $30,000 to get this on the ballot is absurd. Imagine what folks like me (I’m a progressive resident of Washington State) can have with this.

    Every time I hear a person claim that we have to keep gays from getting married to “protect marriage” I’m gonna ask them if they signed the petition for this initiative. If they say “no” I can say “Oh. You don’t really believe in protecting marriage for the family then, do your? Otherwise you’d have wanted this initiative to pass. Why then do you object to gays getting married? It can’t be prejudice, can it?”

  • “AND those required children would be required to carry handguns.” – Dale

    AND be required to attend Jesus Camp for 16 weeks a year before being required to attend the right-wing Christofascist university of their choice.

    After which they will be qualified for nothing except to work for those very same Christofascist organizations that rotted their brains in the first place.

    Sheesh.

  • …we could require all married couples to be certified members of an approved religious institution as well.

    cue the proposition process in Kansas, South & North Dakota, Oklahoma, Nebraska, Mississippi and Alabama in 3, 2, 1…

  • Why would getting 224,800 signatures be hard? This is Washington – half will come from the right fringe (who would like to see it pass) and half from the left (who think it’s too funny to pass up).

  • Gee, this is terrible…if this passes I wouldn’t be able to get married…since I am a little beyond the procreating age( actually a lot!)….However that might be a good thing…why should I marry some old man and have to nurse him thru his final illness.
    Seriously , maybe it would make some of those idiots think…but I doubt it.

  • Let me show my age – it’s just like a 40-year-old Bill Cosby routine:
    “Me and my wife are going to have 40 kids. . . .
    “And she can’t do a thing about it, cuz she’s Catholic . . .
    ” ‘Pope says you gotta do it ah ha ha ha . . . . .”

  • Isn’t this a little like swatting a fly with a shotgun? I mean, come on – let’s be realistic. If a husband or his wife are physically unable to give birth to a child, why would we tell them their marriage is at risk? Yes, you can adopt, try the medical procedures, etc. I can’t even come up with the words to describe how absolutely rediculous this proposal is. Who ever came up with this should be sweeping the floors at McDonald’s.

  • To impute to those who oppose same-sex marriage the argument that “gays can’t reproduce” as a reason that they should not be able to marry (i.e., the purpose, or one of the primary purposes, of marriage is to produce children, and since gays can’t reproduce they don’t qualify) is merely a distortion of their arguments. That is, it is a classic strawman argument. The only people making this “absurd and flawed” argument are the SUPPORTERS of same-sex marriage, such as The Washington Defense of Marriage Alliance. I’ve never seen those who oppose same-sex marriage make this argument.

    Marriage relates courtship and spousal selection to reproduction precisely because the FACT of human reproduction implicates the political necessity that is the ORDERLY perpetuation of the nation and society.

    Because reproduction is a FACT and will have important and inevitable consequences on society both good and bad, the mechanisms of marriage and family law seek to regulate the selection of spouses and stabilize the relationship once the selection is made because of the POTENTIAL OF MEN AND WOMEN TOGETHER TO CREATE SOCIAL DISORDER when they do reproduce.

    From experience, it is taken as given that stable mother/father relationships are the most beneficial arrangement for raising children, and marriage seeks in an important way to assure children the support from the father responsible for their existence, which rationalizes the conferring of rights and benefits as an inducement for heterosexual couples to achieve this objective.

    Same-sex relationships have NOTHING AT ALL to do with either the natural, biological purpose of spouse selection or the political purpose of it as well. Sexual relations between members of the same sex and the relationships that might derive from these have at best a NEUTRAL EFFECT on society in the best of times, and a negative effect when population declines menace a nation. Therefore, it would be IRRATIONAL to confer the status of marriage upon a relationship that is forever separated from the purpose for which it is intended.

    The state purpose of marriage is to bring ORDER to the particular human activity that is procreation. It is not an obligation to reproduce.

  • I’d like to add another slant on this subject. Since my wife is past childbearing age (I think I’m not past the creating part), and since our children are all independent, over 21, older two married, I guess we should divorce. I can go on creating children with a nice young wife. Perhaps the state should declare our marriage void given our age and our children’s age. Then I’m free.

    Of course this is all really just a ploy – a good one – to help the nation understand the stupid religious bigotry against gays and gay committed couples, perpetrated by right wing fanatics who long ago checked their brains at the door when they went to church. Their ultimate leader in Politics is Pr. Bush, who would turn gay’s into untouchables for hate based political power. Reminds me of that #$%^ whose initials were A.H., and who had his own group to hate, the Jews. Reminds me of so much of Muslim communities – the tragedy for these people being that they never had separation of church and state.

    As Dr. Bob Edgar, General Secretary of the 45 million member National Council of the Churches of Christ in the USA said:

    “… the politics of faith have been captured in this country by a radical minority with its narrow and highly divisive agenda emphasizing personal piety above all else. This limited agenda is built around opposition to gay marriage, abortion , and stem cell research, rather than the timeless and unifying themes of the Bible. In a stunning reversal of the historic role of religion in progressive change, faith has been co-opted into a force for preemptive war, indifference, and reckless environmental degradation.”

    So much for the monstrosity in the White House that has sold out to the fanatics, while giving us the catastrophe in Iraq that has cost us more lives and $$ then 9/11, to say nothing of the hundred(s?) of thousands of dead Iraqis. . To finish with more of Dr. Edgar’s commentary, ” …Jesus preached mainly about the poor, and that social justice and peace were at the heart of his ministry.”

    Every day I pray that Bush’s presidency will be totally disgraced. A monument to his presidency should be built. It can stand as one of America’s greatest lessons about America’s greatest error. Built around it can be monuments to the people who will ultimately end the stigma, yes even the “untouchability” of our gay citizens, to the scientists who will most likely bring us unbelievable medical advances from stem cells, and the economists and politicians who will do something about how this nation is losing its middle class to job exports and product imports, while the super-rich, e.g. CEO’s of Exxon, Home Depot etc retire with multihundred million dollar packages.

    Last but not least – within the next 50 years, scientists will create cellular level living matter from non-living material, unlocking the secrets of how life evolved. It’s actually a matter of needing another enormous leap forward in computing power, the building blocks of which include nano-tech based computers now beginning to operate in labs. This comes from a PHD Biotech friend of my son’s. Also, from my lifetime in the computer field, we are not far away – perhaps 25-50 years – from replicating true intelligence in computers, and these machines will be as aware of their own existence as we are of ours.

    The final result will be a new age of reason, rather then an age of faith- blind faith that has in so many ways been the tragedy of mankind, of which 9/11 is an example, the christian crusades of the middle ages another, and the churches murder of millions for witchcraft or daring to challenge the infallibility of the pope re the earth was flat, the sun revolved around the earth, etc others. The very meaning of religion has to change, to an idea that one of our jobs in life is to assume death is finality for us, though we continue living in the genetic arrangement of our descendants, but our self-awareness ends. Given that none of us asked to be born, or had a choice, we need to go back to devoting part of our lives to what Dr. Edgar said above and what the message of Jesus life was all about, helping the poor, downtrodden and disposessed.

  • The Washington DOMA initiative is meant to undermine the “procreation argument”, of course. It means to suggest that marriage exists for other purposes than procreation.

    But supposing that marriage is not concerned primarily with reproduction, then what really would be its concern? The most plausible possibilities are that:

    1) marriage concerns the emotional and affective relationships that people may have for others

    or

    2) there is none. It exists merely as a legislative whim.

    One problem for the first is that if marriage does concern the emotional and affective relationships people might have, then why must this be limited only to one person and another? Why should it not be extended to all emotional and affective relationships, whether this be towards one other person, several persons, animals or objects? Who can judge the worthiness of one’s love? Is not all love equal?

    Secondly, what would be the state’s interest in sanctioning and promoting these affective relationships? Why should it care if a man loves a woman, if another man loves a man, or if a man loves his goldfish?

    That leaves number two. Civil marriage is simply a legislative whim.

    The whole issue of same-sex marriage belongs clearly in Lewis Carroll’s world of Wonderland. If gay rights activists can be reproached for only one thing, it is for injecting irrationality and craziness into the politics and world-view of societies.

  • My fiance and I are about to get married and DON’T plan on having any children. We aren’t stupid. If we can’t provide for a human being (we don’t make that much $$) why would we try? We aren’t going to fall into that trap. Perhaps we just want to be in love with each other (after all that’s the next step after dating..to get married because you love each other) and live comfortably in this horrible economy/country. Maybe we don’t want to stress over saving college money ,worry about our son/daughter being out too late, paying for hospitals bills, clothing, diapers…the list goes on and on on. We want to better ourselves financially and have a fun life with each other a little less stress free…that can be accomplished without having a child. It dosen’t mean we don’t love each other. Some people can’t have children and other people just don’t want them…that’s that. I’m sure this law won’t get passed while I’m alive but, if it does, we’ll be packing our bags to Europe where there is free healthcare anyway and we can celebrate our marriage without children.

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