Some people argue that homosexuals should not be allowed to marry. That a marriage between a man and a man or a woman and a woman will bring down our society. We can’t know if they really love each other. We can’t know where to draw the line for “marriage” as defined by the government. We don’t want our children knowing about these couples, or seeing them having sex on the street corner.

I argue that these people don’t go far enough. It’s not a question of who should be married. It’s a question of “should we marry at all?”

The Question of “Love”

Marriage was originally intended to be a sacred union between a man and a woman who loved each other. When the government begins to get involved, marriage becomes an encouragement to act immorally.

Think about it. We have no way of knowing whether a man and woman actually are in love. We have no way (short of brain scans and the like) of knowing whether they are faking it, or whether the feelings are genuine. Furthermore, the feelings might -appear- genuine, but -actually- be fake. We can’t know if two individuals are in love, so we will have to take their word when they say that they love each other.

We obviously stumble upon problems here. If government grants special recognition to married couples, they will probably also grant special benefits to said couples. How do we know that the individuals are not going into a marriage solely for these government benefits? We don’t! We have to take their word for it, and as we all know, words are flimsy things people toss around on a whim. “I love you” never quite means what it does in the movies… and even in movies (especially in film noir, or in books like The Maltese Falcon), “I love you” is a sign of manipulation and deceit. Better not to give benefits to married couples. Or, better yet, simply don’t marry them at all.

And why should people be treated differently if they love each other anyway? Is that not a form of discrimination?

Ah, but how about those people who marry for money? Should they not be allowed to marry either? Surely not! Obviously, with one individual richer than another, there can be no other reason besides money that the two would wed! Money is the only empirical evidence behind their union, so it is necessarily the reason for their marriage.

Or perhaps people marry for companionship. Companionship is not quite on the level of love, and frankly, I’m companions with my roommate, but I certainly don’t want to marry him. No, marriage is out of the question for companionship. Besides, there is no empirical evidence that people who die alone are sadder than people who die married. Though if I had to venture a guess, married couples are sadder, because their companion has died.

And finally, there is some kind of social importance to being married. If one person is not married to another by a certain age, a certain stigma is attached to them. This stigma can be considered tantamount to prejudice. In order to eliminate the prejudice, we could have single individuals marry one another by a certain age, but that would be far too difficult and time consuming. Better to simply not let individuals marry and give them the satisfaction of calling themselves a “couple”, throwing their status around as one throws diamond rings and Lexuses to show off glamor and status.

Nobody marries anyone out of love, and marriage only reflects immoralities and produces grief.

The Extent of Marriage

But even if people did marry out of love, we have to consider just how far marriage can extend.

To discriminate based off of age of consent would be improper, for that would mean that the mentally incapacitated 80-year-old would apparently have a better understanding of their world than a 17-year-old genius who is already pondering the meaning of life. So, in order to enact a marriage, we would either be forced to give certain tests (which would be incredibly costly), or we would have to ban marriage altogether.

Ah, but even if we -did- discriminate based off of age, even if we did that the 17-year-old must wait to marry, how far would marriage go then? A man and a woman? Does that not open the door to a man and a refrigerator? Or a man and a peahen?

You might argue that we need consent from the two individuals in order to marry, but I would then argue that we could never know if we have full consent. How do we know that the individuals are not being coerced? How do we know if they are being wed from their own free will? We don’t! So surely any two things can be married simply if they make some indication that they said “I do”! How absurd! And do you now see why all marriage should be banned? The line is too thin! The line between a man and a woman versus a man and his female dog is incredibly fine! Better to play it safe and illegalize marriages.

Ah, and there is yet another constraint. That is, how many people should be wed? Should it be just one man and one woman? But if one man and one woman wed, surely one man and two women can wed? Or two women and one man? Or three men and three women? Or perhaps just a dozen men marry each other? Damn! The lines of marriage are so fine that we will never be able to extricate ourselves from this mess.

Marriage should be illegal because we can never define to what extent it should be allowed.

Sexual Activities

This is perhaps the most deplorable of them all! Sexual activities!? There’s a reason it’s a social taboo, even though every animal in the universe fornicates, and that is because our children need innocent and pure ears.

What a man and a woman do in the bedroom is none of my business. It became my business, however, when I realized that my parents were married. How? Because they are one of the many people in the United States who are married. And that marriage spills over into elementary schools.

That’s right. Because everyone out there is having sex and getting married, I learned about sex in sixth grade for a “sexual education” unit. Let me tell you right now that I was far too innocent at that time. The penis and the vagina are two disturbingly lewd body parts that no individual should ever even know about until they are at least twenty-five.

No, heterosexual education should not have been taught in my elementary school. It should never have been taught, because it is with that education that children begin to practice lewd activities! No boy ever knew of a girl’s vagina until that class! And even with hearing about it, they knew nothing until they experimented. Experimented! They became heterosexual because of experiments, not because of some natural desire for one another! What happened was the boy and the girl were bored to death one day, and they recalled their sexual education class, and they decided to see how the penis and vagina actually fit together, and how it actually worked.

Thus, two people don’t fall in love because they’re actually in love. Two people fall in love because they’ve experimented with each other.

It’s because of marriage. If my parents were never married, I would never have been scarred for life by those video tapes. And believe me, I was very scarred.

Think about it, though. If heterosexual marriage were not allowed, our children wouldn’t have to learn about sex! Certainly, couples wouldn’t be stripping down naked in the Denny’s where I’m having breakfast, as they are wont to do, if they weren’t married. After all, it is only married couples who make out in public places.

And if only married couples make out in public places, the question then becomes, “Why are there so many marriages in high school today?”

Conclusion

It’s a simple conclusion, really. Don’t get married. If you know any couples who are married, tell them to stop it, because even if they love each other (which they probably don’t), it’s unfair for them to be able to call themselves “married” or to reap governmental benefits. Furthermore, their marriage stands as a symbol of confusion. Marriage is a confusing topic, and the union between a man and a woman could easily extend to the union between a man and a chair. Their marriage should be struck down, and they should remove the bands of idiocy from their fingers. Finally, marriage should never be allowed, because they corrupt our children, and our children can never learn about sex (and especially not about contraceptives!) until some ripe old age.

Don’t marry. You’ll screw the whole government up.