Marriage is about their children, not mine

A lot of the people against gay marriage complain that marriage is about raising and/or having children, and the only way to do that is with a man and a woman. They of course conveniently omit the fact that many opposite-sex couples are allowed to marry without having children.

Well, some people have decided to fix that:

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 kids 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 woman.

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, and 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 any marriage benefits.

...

Gregory Gadow, who filed I-957 last month, said the three-year timeframe was arbitrary.

"We did toy with the idea of (requiring) procreation before marriage," he said. "We didn't want to piss off the fundamentalists too much."

And what do the homophobes who bitch and moan about children have to say about this? Well, predictably, they immediately back away from their previous statements:

Cheryl Haskins, executive director of Allies for Marriage & Children, agreed with Gadow's group on at least one point about the initiative: "It's absurd," she said.

Haskins said opponents of same-sex marriage "have never said that the sole purpose of marriage is procreation."

Really. Let's see what the Allies for Marriage and Children have to say on their website, shall we?

We believe that authentic marriage*, a complementary union of one man and one woman, serves a basic societal purpose that by nature involves the potential for procreation and encourages the parenting of children by their mother and father.

...

The natural structure of authentic marriage meets an array of needs for the husband and wife, the requirements for procreation, and the complementary balance to the rearing of children by their married mother and father.

And on their talking points page:

Marriage is rooted in the natural order of procreation, the state has a compelling interest in supporting and encouraging the ideal family unit for the nurturing and development of children.

Sure, marriage isn't about procreation--when it'll affect heterosexuals.

You hypocritical bitch.