I need to have a rant. Sorry. You have been warned.

Homosexual marriage has been raised in the media again because apparently the government is thinking of making it legal (I think). The problem is every time they start talking about it on the radio my blood pressure rises and I start mumbling incoherently to myself, making the children worry about my mental health and their own safety (usually this happens in the car).

Why am I so grumpy about this?

Because I can't understand why this didn't fucking happen (many many many) years ago!! Really! What is the problem here?

I've heard it said that legalising gay marriage will weaken the institution of marriage. Why? How? What the fuck?

What is the institution of marriage? Let's be blunt here, marriage is a legal construct designed to make fathers financially responsible for their offspring. Without bothering to do any actual research and relying solely on my piss weak memory I am fairly sure that's how marriage came about. The church got jack of helping women and their bastard children, blah blah blah, and wanted to make men responsible.

These days we are fed the romantic notion of marriage but let's be honest, it is about a legal and social partnership, the romantic part has a co-starring role at best, possibly only a cameo appearance at the beginning of the film (you know those first few months when you spend your whole time bonking and can't imagine a day when you'd seriously rather clean the lint out of your belly button and/or the dryer than have to do that to his thing). But in essence it's a legal unit which clearly shows to our society that this stuff (e.g. children, house, car, jet ski) belongs to these people (i.e. aforementioned married hetrosexual couple).

So what exactly would be weakened? I am truly confused. If the aforementioned couple both happen to have penises or vaginas instead of one of each how does this model become weakened or changed in any way. Surely homosexual relationships are just like hetrosexual ones (except for what happens in the bedroom; you know, which bits go where). How does this one small aspect of their lives affect their entitlement to not only be legally shackled to each other but to indulge in what us hetros take for granted: the wedding itself. For fuck's sake, didn't our forefathers die in the war for our right to spend more than we can afford on weddings involving OTT fashion, overpriced food and alcohol and functions featuring really, really bad dancing? Why should our homosexual cousins be deprived of this rite of passage just because they fancy someone with the wrong sort of genitalia?

Being a non-believer I can not for a second buy into the religious arguement either. I simply can't believe that the hypothetical creator of the universe (including those pesky gay people) would honestly care should they wish to indulge in a ceremony where they pledge their love for each other while wearing ridiculous clothing.

I mean that old "God made Adam and Eve not Adam and Steve" has to be most lame retort against gay marriage in the history of lame retorts. What does that even mean? You can't have it both ways (ha ha) religious people; either everything God makes is good and perfect (in which case so are gay people and their marriages) or everything he makes is imperfect and kind of open to interpretation (in which case gay marriage is OK).

Which brings me to the fact that everything we see and live and experience is a man made construct. We take for granted that life is lived by the rules we experience in our time and in our society. But the reality is that it is people (and not God) who create and adjust and manipulate the social rules by which we live (including those found in the Bible and other religious doctrines). It boggles my mind that people still haul out that old chestnut about "Adam and Steve" when I would defy even the Pope to provide me with a coherent arguement about any true and logical reason as to why homosexual people shouldn't be able to marry. [How absolutely hilarious of the Catholic church, or any Christian church really, to be against such unions when they have been busy buggering little boys in their care for a gazillion years. The hypocrisy!)

In the same way we now can't really imagine how there was a society much like our own which thought slavery was a pretty good thing we will progress to a society where gay marriage is the absolute norm. I am 100% certain of this. I just wish we could bloody well get on with it. I feel I've been listening to the same old stale debate since before I was born. It's dull, it's boring, it's stupid. If a consenting adult wants to marry someone of the opposite sex, the same sex or even a bloody cabbage (a consenting cabbage, of course) then I'm all for it. The world needs more weddings, more divorce lawyers and most importantly more wedding reality tv shows such as Bridezillas (oooh, I'd love a gay version of that). So let's get it together people. Come on Kevin 07, you shit me buddy, but if you can pull this off I'll reluctantly have to sneer just a little less when I see your bobbly little head on the teev.

The End.