Ban divorce? Ballot effort gets OK to gather signatures

[Hara_Juku Tgirl]

October 23, 2009

California Secretary of State Debra Bowen today authorized the backer of an initiative that would ban divorce to begin collecting signatures to put the proposed constitutional amendment before voters.

John Marcotte now has until March 22, 2010, to collect 694,354 signatures of registered voters in order to get the measure on the ballot next year. The proposal would change the California Constitution to "eliminate the ability of married couples to get divorced in California."

Couples could still get their marriages annulled under the proposal.

Here is the official text of the initiative:

ELIMINATES THE LAW ALLOWING MARRIED COUPLES TO DIVORCE. INITIATIVE CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT. Changes the California Constitution to eliminate the ability of married couples to get divorced in California. Preserves the ability of married couples to seek an annulment. Summary of estimate by Legislative Analyst and Director of Finance of fiscal impact on state and local government: Savings to the state of up to hundreds of millions of dollars annually for support of the court system due to the elimination of divorce proceedings.

--Jessica Garrison
__________________________________________________ ____________

Discuss..Are you for it or against it? And why?

~Kisses.

HTG

[Silcc69]

This ought to be interesting.

[JamesHunt]

Are crazed religious zealots behind all this?

What's the point of banning divorce if your partner becomes an asshole

[Christastic]

It would force the anti-gay "pro-marriage" folk to put their money where their mouth is.

[hippifried]

Another dumb idea from somebody who thinks they know what's good for everybody else.

[durpadur]

The REAL defense of marriage act.

[LAGent4ts]

The Family Law division of the State Bar Association will put an end to this I suspect if this ever gets on the ballot.

The State Constitution should be amended to remove the word "Marriage" and give the state authority to sanction civil unions between ANY two individuals, thus entitling the "unioned couples to all the rights, benefits and liabilities formally granted to married couples.

Marriage then becomes only a religious cermony sanctioned by a religion and they can marry or not marry whomever they, provided they are a "unioned couple" and then impose their tunnel visioned view of the world on those happy couples.

[dgs925]

It wouldn't pass, not in a million years, but I think it's a great idea. The only thing is you'd have to give everyone who got married before the law was passed a chance to "divorce now or forever hold your peace".

From then on, anyone who decided to get married would have to think very hard about it, since it is forever. The way things are now, marriage is meaningless - it can be dissolved whenever you want.

[Cuchulain]

I've seen two schools of thought on this. The first is that Marcotte is deadly serious and the second is that it's a satirical attack on the hypocrisy of the prop 8 crowd. After seeing this interview on 'The Young Turks', I'm in the second camp. "I can sell my daughter (according to the bible ) but I can't find anybody who'll give me a good price for her." When asked about the prohibition against eating shellfish contained in the Bible, Marcotte replies "I used to protest at Red Lobster every weekend but that's a separate issue".

[trish]

California's referendum system is clearly in need of revision. Sounds like a proposition!