Democratic state legislators in California have introduced Assembly Constitutional Amendment 5 (ACA 5) to protect same-sex marriages by eliminating the traditional definition of marriage from state law.
The proposed amendment aims to repeal Proposition 8’s language, which states that marriage is only “between a man and a woman,” and replace it with the provision that “The right to marry is a fundamental right.”
However, the California Family Council (CFC), a conservative advocacy group, has raised concerns about the potential consequences of ACA 5.
CFC President Jonathan Keller believes that the open-ended wording of the amendment could lead to the normalization of non-traditional marriage structures, which he argues could harm children’s development.
“In a society like ours, you never can count on what people are willing to do for legal and financial and political reasons,” Keller told Fox News Digital in an interview. “And ACA 5, again, eliminates any of those safeguards, and it opens up Pandora’s Box.”
Keller suggests that the amendment could pave the way for polyamorous, incestuous, and child marriages.
The CFC’s concerns stem from the belief that the language of ACA 5 is too broad and lacks the necessary safeguards to prevent such scenarios.
The introduction of ACA 5 comes in the wake of Proposition 8’s passage in 2008, which faced legal challenges and a refusal by state officials to defend it, effectively suspending the legislation.
Although Prop. 8 remains part of the constitution, it has been unenforceable for over a decade. The overturning of Roe v. Wade in the summer of 2022 prompted California Democrats to revisit the law’s language, fearing it would go into effect.
The debate surrounding ACA 5 has been further fueled by recent developments in the Bay Area, where the Oakland City Council approved polyamorous relationships in April, protecting “diverse family structures” from discrimination.
The Berkeley City Council followed suit in May, signaling a growing recognition of nontraditional relationships in the liberal region.
Keller warns that ACA 5 could be “a disaster” if enshrined into law, particularly because California is one of the few states where child marriage remains legal.
He argues that the amendment could set up a constitutional protection for such unions, making it difficult to challenge them in the future.
According to data from the American Community Survey, approximately 8,789 children in California ages 15 to 17 entered into marriage in 2021.
The trend of extending rights to nontraditional families has also been observed in other parts of the country, with cities like Somerville and Cambridge in Massachusetts enacting similar laws in recent years.
Supporters of ACA 5, including state Senator Scott Wiener, view the amendment as an essential step in protecting the freedom to marry for millions of LGBTQ Californians.
In a statement last year, Wiener emphasized the need to remove the “scar” of Prop. 8 from the state’s Constitution, especially in light of the perceived threat posed by “extremist Supreme Court Justices” to marriage equality.
The post California Constitutional Amendment Sparks Debate Over Definition of Marriage appeared first on Resist the Mainstream.
Click this link for the original source of this article.
Author: Kelly H
This content is courtesy of, and owned and copyrighted by, https://resistthemainstream.org and its author. This content is made available by use of the public RSS feed offered by the host site and is used for educational purposes only. If you are the author or represent the host site and would like this content removed now and in the future, please contact USSANews.com using the email address in the Contact page found in the website menu.