Announcing: Washington Defense of Marriage Alliance

[TechBear_Seattle]

Note to mods: I am the copyright holder of record for this material.

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From our website:

The threat to marriage
On July 26, 2006, the Washington Supreme Court declared that the state's Defense of Marriage Act is constitutional. In upholding DOMA, the Court stated that marriage exists for the purpose of procreation and that the state has a legitimate interest in limiting marriage only those couples capable of procreating without third party assistance.

Because of that ruling, precedent now exists where the validity of any marriage can be decided solely on whether or not the husband and wife have had children together. The right to inherit or claim common ownership based on marriage may now be challenged if the married couple does not have offspring. It may now be possible for employers or insurance providers to deny coverage of a spouse until the couple has procreated. And the door is now open for the Legislature to require that two people have children together before they may become married.

What we can do
The people cannot overrule the Supreme Court, but we can place boundaries on how and when the precedent of Andersen v. King County will be applied. For that purpose, the Washington Defense of Marriage Alliance was created on July 27, 2006. This January, WA-DOMA will propose an initiative to the people that will give Andersen the force of law while defending marriage from the worst consequences of that ruling. Under the initiative:

• Marriage will be restricted only to those couples able to have children together.



• Couples married in Washington will have three years from the date of their marriage or 18 months from the date the initiative becomes law, whichever is later, to either have children together or provide documentation that they have fulfilled the primary purpose of marriage. Failure to comply would result in the marriage being annulled.



• Couples married outside of Washington who live in this state will have three years from the date of their marriage or 18 months from the date the initiative becomes law or 30 days from the date they move into this state, whichever is later, to either have children or provide documentation that they have fulfilled the primary purpose of marriage. Failure to comply would result in the marriage being unrecognized as a valid marriage until proper documentation is filed.

The website for the Washington Defense of Marriage Alliance is http://www.wa-doma.org. A copy of our proposed initiative can be found on the site, or downloaded as a PDF document.

And lest anyone think this is a joke: In order to set up our site without committing a felony under state law, we've had to file with the US Internal Revenue Service and the state Public Disclosure Commission as a political committee. I assure you, this is no joke. We will be filing this initiative at the earliest opportunity in the first week of January.