Let's begin with the concept of "ideal" and how that relates to marriage, something most of us will involve ourselves in for most of our lives, if we have a desire to obtain a greater portion of joy and happiness in our lives.
I think it is a no-brainer that to have both a man and a women enter their marriage with their chastity intact is "ideal". In a union that requires loyalty and devotion, it is so much better to have no skeletons in the closet, no embarrasing old fling to make a visit, no previous commitment or children that this new union really can never truly share. If nothing else, such a marriage has a better than average chance of being successful, just by not being "complicated".
Although I know that it is quite svelt to tear the Ten Commandments out of courthouse yards, I will make an appeal to old custom and the Bible, where you were supposed to leave your parents and cleave to your wife. That sounds like loyalty to me, even beyond your life-long ties to those who gave you birth. God seemed pretty wierd about being a virgin at the marriage altar as well, and even kindly Christ gave the idea extra umph by saying that if you even looked at another woman with ideas in your head, you were being disloyal to your wife. Called it "adultery", even.
Just think of the marriage every young woman wants and how tainted it gets if groom or bride had previously fielded their "wild oats". Even in these incredibly permissive times, everyone knows (and may admit) that this marriage is sad compared to what could have been. Obviously, in spite of the best efforts of mass-media and moral relativists, everyone understands when an ideal marriage is not happening, and no amount of white dresses, mounds of flowers, and smiling clergy can repair the obvious damage.
The great part is that ideal marriages are happening all the time! Even today, in the age of "everyone is doing it", there are still young people who "kept themselves" and present themselves unused to their new spouses, ready to give everything they have (and they still have everything to give) to their marriage and their future family together. My wedding involved two such people, as did my parents' and my wife's parents'. Such a thing is still very normal and expected within my culture, though I am sad to say that the rest of society somehow decided otherwise.
As a world, we have seriously deflated what our expectation of marriage should be. These days, many marriages are attended by the children of those getting married, often children with a father or mother who is not standing at the altar. Progressive couples may even invite former spouses or old flames, as if this is some freakshow mega-family being sewed together like body parts on Frankenstein. What a wonderful jumble of mixed emotions on a day that people have supposedly waited for all their lives! The funny part is that everyone is supposed to smile and sigh with wonder just as if this were not the fourth spouse (or practical spouse) for everyone involved, behaving just as if this was an ideal marriage.
Now, I don't want to be accused of not being forgiving. My own parents divorced in my childhood and my father married a very nice lady, who was also a divorcee. Everybody had tons of baggage to bring to the union and there has been plenty of troubles caused by his, hers, and theirs. With patience, they have perservered, hopefully because nobody could expect anyone's full loyalty and devotion. No new family was being formed here, just a lonely man and woman who decided to love and care for each other and devote what they could to each other. Was it ideal? Of course not. But everyone wanted these two people to have another chance, even if there wasn't much of the ideal marriage stuff to bring to the table.
I have often wondered if it would be useful to call subsequent unions something other than marriage. As a person that avoids the whole idea of a "blended" family (I already have a family, albeit broken, thank you very much), I would really welcome some different terms to describe varying sorts of joining. My marriage is very different from my father's second marriage and as such, it is probably deserving of a different name to describe it. Where my wife and I having children was assumed and looked forward to with joy and anticipation by all, my father and his new wife, though still in their thirties when they married, wisely did not have more children. When you already have a family, even a broken one, a good man or woman feels the need to consider the ramifications of their actions in the lives of their children from a former spouse, as well as how their new spouse may feel as a redundant appendage. Any child brought into this tangle of relationships would have likely feel alienated enough by various half-siblings, divided loyalties, and where they "fit in" if they manage to at all. I have never come up with a word or phrase that I thought would adaquately describe the frustrating feelings of my father and his second wife; feelings of being wedded yet not being able to feel like everything is really "ours" together. In a phrase, it is significantly less than ideal.
The problem comes in that the entire concept of marriage and family gets damaged as lesser forms use and enjoy the same term. All of a sudden, a fifth marriage looking back on twelve kids from eight broken union attempts is just as good as a bright young couple looking forward to total family unity, all because their descriptor is the same. I use a word for the way this seems to me: disengenuious. If the young couple are entering a marriage, with all the exciting expectations the circumstance implies, how can the fifth-time-around couple, with barely any expectations that a pre-nuptual agreement hasn't already codified, enter into the same sort of "marriage"? The only thing I can think is that to call the fifth attempt a marriage is to be (wait for it) disengenuous. The whole ideal of marriage is blackened by those who enter one missing most of the expected attributes and expectations. It is like calling a pile of rusted metal with two flat tires on top a "car" and expecting get in and drive it somewhere.
Now, some interesting people are proposing that we expand the ideal of marriage even further. With shouts of "fairness", practitioners of sexual perversions, sometimes erroniously calling themselves "homosexuals", now demand to have ceremonies with flowers and clergy, and, with their sexmates, enjoy the full benefits of "marriage". If anybody thought a fifth marriage was a bit of a farce compared with the ideal, this idea takes the cake!
In the one preceding paragraph, I have offended the "gay" heart multiple times. Let me expand on a few statements and offend these people further.
First off, it is impossible to be "homosexual" as a state of being, so I suggest that people stop using the term. "Sexual pervert" is more historically correct and far more accurate. First, one cannot be "homosexual" from birth, as many have conceded, unless someone ends up going to jail for a very long time for having sex with infants. Also, "homosexuality" is put forth as a sexual preference, which means you would have needed to have several instances of sex with several different lifeforms of several different persuasions to have developed such a preference for one over another. Given the term itself and how it is attained, there cannot be any honestly "homosexual" people. At best, you could have decided, at some point, to settle on a certain flavor after a time of sexual "exploration".
And please, don't bother to bring up the term "heterosexual". That would be a classic case of justifying a concept by defining its (perhaps) more acceptable opposite. As the trap is defined, if you are not "homosexual", you must be "heterosexual", and in identifying one way, you give credence and respect to the other. I can honestly say that I am neither a "homosexual" or a "heterosexual" and there is no evidence to label me as either. I have only had sex with one person: my wife. I have not compared the sex I have with my wife with the sex I had with other women (because I have not had sex with other women). I did not explore sex with other genders/phylum/genus, so I cannot really say what preference I would have amongst them. Therefore, I cannot honestly be called "heterosexual" much less any other "orientation" label. In fact, there really isn't a term for my sexual preference, beside perhaps "loyal".
Now that I have deflated any sense of respectability that sexual perverts have tried to built up over the past few years, I feel like everyone is ready to take a good look at the sickening effort being made to shoehorn the act of plank-mates "pleasuring" themselves on each other into the ideal of marriage. Hopefully, when I discussed the two concepts in the same sentence a moment ago, you had that twist in your stomach that says that these two things don't belong together. Hang on to that feeling because I am going to intensify it. A lot.
Everyone understands that sex is an important component of marriage. It can strengthen the bond forged at the time of the wedding. It can bring children into the family that the wedding created. Well, it could if we were actually talking about a union between a man and a woman who are striving to become one. These things aren't going to happen in a perverse same-sex coupling, no matter how hard genetic science or government funding want to make things "fair".
We need to talk about the word "optimal". It sounds like "ideal" but it isn't. Optimal is "the best you can do", given circumstances. In marriage or anything else, not everyone can have the ideal, but everyone can have the optimal. For instance, my father couldn't be a "virgin" for his second wife, which would have been ideal. My father could be absolutely devoted to his second wife after their marriage, which is optimal for him, given his circumstances. In my case, the optimal circumstance I brought to the altar was sexual purity, which was "better" or "higher" than the optimal circumstance my father could bring to altar #2 and certainly closer to the "ideal". This is meant as no disrespect to Dad, as he brought everything he could offer to his second marriage, which is all he had and is worthy of honor. Because of my circumstances, my "everything" that I brought to my marriage included more "ideal marriage" things than his did (and could have). Keep the terms "ideal" and "optimal" deeply set in your mind as we explore how the "optimal" proposed gay "marriage" stacks up to the ideal marriage between a man and a woman.
As part of their sexual explorations, "gay" people have collected a group (sometimes a large group) of "partners", which are basically failed spouses if there will be "gay marriages". This train of old exploits is an expected part of discovering one's "gay-ness" and considered "healthy" and "good" by most sexual perverts. Therefore, the "optimal" circumstance in relation to sexual purity for nearly all committed "gays" entering a relationship is "devoted to you from now on". Some people, because of the strong hormonal pull of sexual feelings, get seduced into their first sexual encounter without intending to ruin their virginity, which is sad and unfortunate, but is also quite forgivable and, if it doesn't result in children, need not destroy the possibility of a positive marriage because it was an isolated mistake. "Gays" cannot claim this, for their sexual exploits become a journey rather than a mistake. For "gays", sex does not follow and enhance marriage, as it is supposed to in the ideal; sex typically precedes any real commitment, cheapening any future commitment, and is often used as a litmus test before any committment is considered. Although some marriages (that need another and lower term to describe them) follow a "try before you buy" "shack-up", everyone acknowledges that this is very sub-optimal and statistics show that this often leads to divorce. This circumstance is however the "optimal" one for almost all "gay" relationships, meaning that the best "gays" can do is roughly comparible to among the worst that currently-defined marriages can do.
I must say here that some "gays" justify the concept of "gay marriage" by comparing them to extremely sub-optimal marriages. "At least we love each other, which is more than I can say for those married people!" In subjective aspects such as love, this may very well be true, but each individual case will be different. Let us continue with more objective criteria for our comparison.
In an ideal marriage, a family is created. Through sex, children are created by this marriage, which is very ennobling for everyone concerned. Parents "grow up" and become more responsible and children are born into a stable and nuturing environment leading to the next generation of responsible adults. Of course, this is the ideal again and many families fall short of this. However, most nations and governments acknowledge that marriage-led families, on average, produce more and better adults than any other institution, such as orphanages, adoptive homes, and foster homes. In comparsion, though, committed "gay" couplings cannot form such families and begin the relationship, again at the most "optimal", with a marked disadvantage of artificiality.
Now, "gays" can simulate a family, which I think is part of their push for "gay marriage". Children can be adopted or fostered, or brought from other relationships where one partner or another "slipped" from a committed "gay" lifestyle and had sex with someone of the opposite gender, among other possible perverse manuvers. Before I introduced "gay-ness" to this essay, I described these sorts of "his, hers, and ours" circumstances and how inferior they can be when compared with the bright, young, "virgin" couple that is the ideal. Again, this is another case where the "optimal" thing a "gay" person can bring to the table in the way of family is comparable to among the lowest definition of marriage.
My wife told me a story the other day, as I was talking about this essay with her. She had heard a report of a "gay" coupling (men in this case) that wanted children. Knowing that nature only allowed one spermatazoa to combine with one egg, they arranged for an interesting solution made possible by recent science and tremendous infusions of money. With the sperm taken from each man, two donated eggs would be fertilized. A willing serrogate was procured and both eggs were implanted and carried to term. "Twins" were born and the "gay" partners took home "their" children, but not really.
The seemingly warm and cuddly human interest story ended there, but I started thinking forward. As those children grow, it will become likely obvious which child belongs to which father. If they are honest, the "gay" dads will explain the circumstances of conception and birth with the kids, revealing that the there is no biological tie between the siblings and that they are only really the true child of one of their "fathers". The natural inclination of almost all children is to 1) affiliate more with their natural dad when inevitable conflicts arise, and 2) to seek out their biological mother and try to connect with her. These two realities, which come up with almost perfect clockwork in those tween years, can cause terrible havoc in any situation. Ideal marriages handle these needs easily - natural father and mother are right there, already bound together and united both with each other and with their biological child in a unified family. The "gay" conglomeration has so many points against it, even in this particularly "enhanced" situation, that these needs of the child can often causes a serious rift, as it is easier to sever the manufactured "gay" coupling than it is to interfere with the very real bond between a biological father and his child. Where a proper marriage will tend to pull together because of their common bond in the face of most challenges, the simulated yet increasingly conflicted "gay" "family" will tend to come apart in favor of more authentic and natural ties. It may be painful for "gay" advocates to admit, but blood really is thicker than water.
I could go on, but I see no need to provide further examples of how a "gay marriage", even at its absolute best, is so tragically and purposefully inferior to the ideal marriage. In an age where many people feel that "gays" are more in touch with their feelings and far more sensitive and caring than others, given their downtrodden status, I strongly charge the sexual perversion community with heartless cruelty to themselves and to everyone touched by their perversion. What "kindly" person would militantly demand that intelligent adults enter into purposefully sub-optimal committments and then possibly drag in innocent children for the sole purpose of playing a childish game of "house" that only honors political opportunists? We already know the answer to this question: perverts (and not just the sexual variety).
After thrusting a sword into the hearts of "gays" and twisting their irresponsible yet cherished beliefs a bit, let me offer some hope. Not just a tiny sunbeam of hope, but "bright sunshine on a clear day" kind of hope. Wherever you are and whatever you have done in the past, you, like everyone else that wants happiness and to give more happiness to someone you love, can have a more "optimal" relationship, bound together by age-old custom and better approaching the ideal of marriage.
If you have considered yourself "gay", you can simply put that aside and move on to a much brighter set of possibilities! Every ideally married couple will tell you that, although sex is an important part of their relationship, it does not define them or their marriage. How you have chosen to have sex in the past does not demand how you must have it in the future. You can have sex that is more natural and infinately more productive and you can still marry someone of that "other" gender to enjoy such sex as part of a much more fine and more rich relationship than you may have ever known before. Just as you chose your current "partner" from the field of available "same-gendered" people around you, you can chose to look for the person you can marry among the "differently-gendered". You can have far, far more than the selfish and self-serving "gay" community offers you and, if your supposedly enlightened "gay" friends are any friends at all, they should cheer your striving for the "optimal" -- the best you can possibly do and be!
So, instead of fighting political and judicial battles to legitimize a bad facsimile of an ideal marriage, why not simply abandon the silly labels that defined you in the past and "go for the gold"? You, your future spouse, and possibly your future natural children will be very glad you did!