How Do You Stop an Anti-Gay Marriage Amendment? | Slog | The Stranger | Seattle's Only Newspaper

How Do You Stop an Anti-Gay Marriage Amendment? | Slog | The Stranger | Seattle's Only Newspaper

Wednesday, May 7, 2008
Homo How Do You Stop an Anti-Gay Marriage Amendment?
posted by Dan Savage on May 7 at 8:42 AM

By asking straight people to sacrifice something to protect the sacred sanctity of the institution of marriage.

Earlier this week the state legislature in Pennsylvania was preparing to place an anti-gay marriage amendment to the Pennsylvania state constitution before voters in that state. Then a state senator, Vincent Fumo (D-Philadelphia), introduced an amendment-to-the-amendment that wound up sinking PA’s proposed anti-gay marriage amendment.

His amendment would “outlaw the dissolution of most marriages in Pennsylvania,” he said in a news release. That would mean there would be few legal ways for the divorce of a married couple, a man and a woman.
Mr. Fumo, who leaves the Senate on Nov. 30, said the stated goal of Senate Bill 1250 is to “protect the sanctity of the marital institution” by defining a legal marriage as only between one man and one woman.

The next logical step, according to Mr. Fumo, is to also outlaw divorces…

The state senate in Pennsylvania is controlled by Republicans, and the Pittsburgh Post-Gazzette reports that Fumo’s amendment didn’t have a chance. But Fumo’s amendment would have to be debated, and PA’s family values crusaders didn’t want to engage in a debate about divorce—currently a purely heterosexual institution in PA—and how straight divorce undermines the totally sacred sanctity of the institution of marriage. It’s way easier for sanctimonious lawmakers to point their ring fingers at same-sex marriage, which is currently illegal in PA (if not unconstitutional), and blame people that have done no harm to the sacred sanctity of the institution of marriage for all the damage done by heterosexuals.

You know, folks behind anti-gay marriage amendments like to accuse gay people of seeking to “redefine marriage.” But, as I wrote in The Commitment, it’s actually straight people that have redefined marriage (mostly in good ways—women are no longer property, for instance). But here’s another straight redefinition of marriage to add to the list: An institution that most straight people weren’t interested in defending until one day they realized they might have to share it.