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The Spirit of Jonathan Swift is Alive and Well
05 Feb
See, that’s what Fundamentalism breeds: no irony. – Bill Hicks
On July 26th of last year, the State Supreme Court here in Washington handed down a decision in the case of Anderson v. King County. In this verdict, the Court ruled that the State has a legitimate interest in limiting marriage to couples who could conceive children, and thus could prohibit same-sex marriage.
In response, a pro-marriage rights group sought to highlight the absurdity of the Anderson v. King County ruling by taking it to its logical conclusion. If the rationale for denying same-sex couples the right to marry was that they couldn’t procreate, then surely heterosexual couples who either couldn’t or wouldn’t procreate shouldn’t be allowed to marry either, right? The culmination of that effort is I-957, the Defense of Marriage Initiative. If passed by the voters, this Initiative will
add the phrase, “who are capable of having children with one another” to the legal definition of marriage;
require that couples married in Washington file proof of procreation within three years of the date of marriage or have their marriage automatically annulled;
require that couples married out of state file proof of procreation within three years of the date of marriage or have their marriage classed as “unrecognized;”
establish a process for filing proof of procreation; and
make it a criminal act for people in an unrecognized marriage to receive marriage benefits.
While I certainly approve of the initiative sponsor’s aims to use satire to shock the public into recognizing the absurdity of an unjust law, there is a definite danger that people might take it seriously. After all, when Jonathan Swift first introduced satire into modern Western politics with A Modest Proposal, he nearly lost his patronage due to the outcry from people who couldn’t tell he was joking.
(link via Jesus’ General)
