Okay, so I was just looking through the intranet trying to fulfill my journalistic obligation of bringing you the funniest bizarre death headlines, and I came upon this on LATimes.com: “California Secretary of State Debra Bowen authorized the backer of an initiative that would ban divorce to begin collecting signatures to put the proposed constitutional amendment before voters.” For just a moment I thought this was the stupidest thing ever—that is, until I realized that it was the greatest thing ever. To confirm my suspicions, I did a little investigating and found that the initiative’s author, John Marcotte, has a Web site called rescuemarriage.org.

At first I couldn’t tell whether it was an honest-to-goodness evangelical/patriot/Proud to be an Amurican! Web site or a sendup, because even when real, those sites are pretty self-satirizing. It was only when I read “Divorce is unnatural, just like polyester” that I knew I’d struck genius.

Throughout the ugly Prop. 8 campaign, proponents said their support of the initiative had nothing do with being anti-gay but simply showed their support for the sanctity of “traditional marriage.” Marcotte’s plan gives them exactly what they said they wanted: a constitutional amendment that honors the sacredness of the institution to the point that no one can break that vow—no matter how terrible, disgusting or Denise Richards their spouse turns out to be.

Marcotte needs about 700,000 signatures to get this on the ballot, and though that might sound like a lot, consider that six million people voted against Prop. 8, so if you just get a tick over 10 percent of those people to sign, you’re there. The problem is that Marcotte can’t afford to pay anyone to sign people up so this is going to be an entirely volunteer endeavor.

I’m calling out all groups interested in civil, gay, lesbian, transgender and human rights to get yourselves a petition and start gathering signatures. You take care of that and I’ll keep looking for hilarious ways to die.

Oh, wait! Found it! “Ice Skating Bear Kills Russian Circus Hand.”

Tags: California Secretary of State, Debra Bowen, DENISE RICHARDS, John Marcotte, Proposition 8, rescuemarriage.org, skating bear, traditional marriage