"Till death do us part" is no idle promise to John Marcotte, a Sacramentan bent on banning divorce in California.

The Web designer and occasional prankster in 2008 voted against Proposition 8, the California Marriage Protection Act that outlawed gay marriage.

Now the gay-rights supporter, who calls himself an "accidental activist," figures those same protectors of traditional marriage should flip over his initiative: the 2010 California Marriage Protection Act.

Prohibiting divorce in California, after all, would take marriage protection to a new level.

And since the anti-gay marriage movement migrated to Maine, where voters narrowly repealed that state's new law allowing same-sex marriage, Marcotte figures his anti-divorce campaign could be exported there, too.

"We're going to enforce morality in California and then we'll spread from state to state, the same way the Prop. 8 backers moved to Maine," Marcotte said.

"If you want to protect traditional marriage, don't stop gay people from getting married," he said. "Stop straight people from getting divorced."

Is he serious or being seriously funny? Probably both.

The California secretary of state already has certified the ban-divorce initiative for statewide circulation. And Marcotte, who is married with two children, figures that there's a growing chance that his measure could achieve the nearly 700,000 registered voters to qualify it for next year's ballot.

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