Desert Observer's Page Palm Springs, California. The latest media report in the ongoing same-sex marriage saga is "news" of an effort to get the state out of the marriage business. According to the Sacramento Bee CapitolAlert newsletter and AP reports, two heterosexual college students, Kaelan Housewright and Ali Shames, 22 and 21 respectively, have filed an initiative to "replace the term 'marriage' with 'domestic partnership' throughout California statutes, while

preserving the rights of marriage".  Now all they have to do is gather approximately 700,000 valid signatures in order to qualify the initiative on the ballot. Why is this effort receiving prominent attention as a newsworthy item? Any citizen can take out initiative paperwork, so the question remains, why is this news?

The California ballot initiative process is ridiculously easy to use and misuse. Whether the fledgling effort by Housewright and Shams is misuse, misguided or simply another case of individuals exercising their constitutional right, the question still needs to be asked why and how the effort quickly become a state-wide media frenzy happening? Is the news cycle so desperate for something to report that an issue with no identified backing nor financial resources is worth attention-grabbing headlines and newspaper page-one treatment? As a practical reality, doesn't the undertaking fall somewhere between pipe dream and delusion?

The media in California clearly have developed a gluttonous appetite for anything dealing with "same-sex marriage". It's become little more than an ongoing media frenzy and it's also become ridiculous. We need to send them a message - "Media people: Enough! Stop! Get a life! Think before you print everything that crosses your desk." But, of course, they won't listen - they never do.