JLF: Good Thing The Gays Can't Ruin Marriage

So, how solid is the institution of marriage that the gays might ruin/insult/stain it?  I don't want to bury you with statistics, because anyone can do that, so I'll just say that approximately 50% of marriages end in divorce.  That should be enough to point out that marriage is doing juuuuuuuuuuuuuuust great without the gays.  Let's put that in perspective:  1. If a baseball player batted 0.500, he'd be the best ever;  2. If a library has half its books in order, it'd be... um.... 3.  If half the people in Guatanamo deserve to be there, then we're doing aaaaaaalright; 4. If 50% of children in South Africa AREN'T projected to die from AIDS, then... wait... that percentage is really only good if we're measuring batting average or our approach to the War on Terror. 

Anyway, I digress.  There are lots of divorces, but what I want to point out is something that infuriates me even more than that insane statistic NOT ruining the institution of marriage.  The marriageable age, the age at which someone can get married, is 18 across the US, but almost all states allow children to get married at 16 with parents' consent (15 in Georgia, Hawai'i, Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri; 14 in NY; 13 in NH).  So, what I'd see, if I was an alien looking in, is that we're trusting the decision of marriage to children who we don't trust to have a beer.  Wait... that's a different argument.

What I'd see, if I was an alien looking in, is that 18 year-olds (and 16 year-olds combining forces with their 50%-chance-divorced-parents) are better equipped to chose who/how/when to marry than someone who is, simply, gay.  Our laws, essentially, say:

"You aren't equipped and/or we don't want to give you the power to pick whom you will spend your life with, but we'll give that power to 16-year-olds and their probably-divorced parents (as long as all parties are straight), people who have already been divorced as many times as they like (as long as they are straight, after all, it's tough to argue with irreconcilable differences), drunk people who get married to total strangers (as long as they are straight).  You gays just aren't like the rest of us who can marry/divorce (and repeat at will) without consequence, because our actions don't tarnish the institution of marriage.  Our actions ARE the institution of marriage, and we'll do exactly what we please with it.  It's our yard to tend, leave unkempt or even cover in manure. 

"Now can you do us a favor?  We have a wedding coming up, great young couple full of promise... can you organize the event, design the tuxes and dress, do the bride's hair and makeup, make the bridesmaids look like bursting chocolate éclairs, play the organ, lead the ceremony, cater, provide a band and arrange the flowers?  See?  This is the side of the wedding you should be on..."

  - JLF