A Taste of Their Own Medicine

Gay rights activists in Washington state have come up with a brilliant idea - a law that tells straight folks to either procreate or their marriage is over:

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 children within three years or else have their marriages annulled.

Initiative 957 was filed by the Washington Defense of Marriage Alliance, which was formed last summer after the state Supreme Court upheld Washington's ban on same-sex marriage.

In that 5-4 ruling, the court found that state lawmakers were justified in passing the 1998 Defense of Marriage Act, which restricts marriage to unions between a man and a woman. In defending the act, the ruling specifically mentioned a state interest in furthering procreation.

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. 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 marriage benefits.

Finally, the straight folks will get a taste of what it's like when the law goes poking its nose into your personal business. All those fundies who touted procreation as the number one reason to keep marriage as a heterosexual only club will now have to put their money where their mouth is and pony up the kiddies or face dissolution of their sacred union. Oh, the hew and cry that this proposal will cause. I can hear it now, "What right do you have to dictate what my personal relationships look like?"

One of the anti-same-gender marriage proponents called the proposal "absurd."

Our point exactly.