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Hastily Written Ballot Initiative, Seeking To Ban Same-Sex Marriage, Would Make All Marriage Illegal
Not The Onion!
http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2015/07/06/3677133/oops-ballot-initiative-attacking-sex-marriage-inadvertently-ban-marriage/
A proposed amendment to the Colorado constitution appears designed to eliminate same-sex marriages. Yet it is so broadly drafted that it would most likely eliminate marriage entirely in the state of Colorado.
The proposed amendment, which would be subject to a ballot initiative if its supporters collect enough signatures, provides that “marriage is recognized as a form of religious expression of the people of Colorado that shall not be abridged through the state prescribing or recognizing any law that implicitly or explicitly defines a marriage in opposition or agreement with any particular religious belief.” It’s the last part of this text — the reference to “any particular religious belief” — that would prevent marriages from taking place in Colorado.
During the Jim Crow era, for example, white Southerners frequently defended bans on interracial marriage on religious grounds. Indeed, one judge argued that “Almighty God created the races white, black, yellow, malay and red, and he placed them on separate continents,” and that we should infer from this fact that God “did not intend for the races to mix.” Though this belief is not particularly common in the modern age, the proposed Colorado amendment prohibits any form of marriage that is opposed by “any particular religious belief.” So interracial marriage would be forbidden.
Many religious sects also forbid interfaith marriages. 2 Corinthians 6:14, for example, instructs the faithful not to be “yoked together with unbelievers,” a provision which can be read to forbid marriages outside the faith. Nor are such prohibitions limited to Judeo-Christian sects. In any event, any faith’s ban on marriage to members of another religion would be written into the state constitution if the proposed Colorado amendment became law.
The proposed amendment, which would be subject to a ballot initiative if its supporters collect enough signatures, provides that “marriage is recognized as a form of religious expression of the people of Colorado that shall not be abridged through the state prescribing or recognizing any law that implicitly or explicitly defines a marriage in opposition or agreement with any particular religious belief.” It’s the last part of this text — the reference to “any particular religious belief” — that would prevent marriages from taking place in Colorado.
During the Jim Crow era, for example, white Southerners frequently defended bans on interracial marriage on religious grounds. Indeed, one judge argued that “Almighty God created the races white, black, yellow, malay and red, and he placed them on separate continents,” and that we should infer from this fact that God “did not intend for the races to mix.” Though this belief is not particularly common in the modern age, the proposed Colorado amendment prohibits any form of marriage that is opposed by “any particular religious belief.” So interracial marriage would be forbidden.
Many religious sects also forbid interfaith marriages. 2 Corinthians 6:14, for example, instructs the faithful not to be “yoked together with unbelievers,” a provision which can be read to forbid marriages outside the faith. Nor are such prohibitions limited to Judeo-Christian sects. In any event, any faith’s ban on marriage to members of another religion would be written into the state constitution if the proposed Colorado amendment became law.
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