No Threat to Marriage

On March 7, as they throw the weight of their party delegates behind the governor or the senator, the vice-president or the basketball star, Californian voters will also be privileged to vote upon a ballot initiative, dubbed

. If passed, Proposition 22 would uphold a traditional definition of marriage by enacting a statute whose entire wording could fit inside a fortune cookie: "Only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California."

Generally speaking, Californians like to think of themselves as innovative vanguards of societal change and as leaders in new ways of thinking. California gave the world the Free Speech Movement, the personal computer, legalized medical marijuana, and Boogie Nights. California has long played guru to the rest of the world in the spiritual disciplines of surfing and tree hugging. But on Super Tuesday, if the polls are correct, Californians will instead vote for convention, belatedly joining the religious right's reactionary crusade.

In fact, should Proposition 22 pass, California would join some thirty other states and the federal government in preemptively banning same-sex marriage on the off chance that some unbearably tolerant state, like Vermont, might give its lesbian and gay citizens the same rights and responsibilities it gives to its straight residents.

I am troubled by the proposed statute because it is unfair and unjust, and because I find problematic the primary assertion of its proponents: that laws restricting access to marriage protect marriage and make it a stronger institution.

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