If anything needs protecting, it's marriage. Folks are jumping in and out of it faster than Zsa Zsa Gabor can say "I do."
That's why I thought it was great to hear that the Coalition for the Protection of Marriage in Nevada had come out of the closet, so to speak. I ran home and told my wife that help was on the way and that she only had a few days left to pick on me.
"OK," she said. "Go empty the garbage. And when you get done with that could you wash my car?"
On the way to the trash can I thought about marriage, wondering why anyone in his (or her) right mind would want any part of it.
I couldn't remember my wife ever asking me to empty the garbage when we were dating. Not that my trash didn't need emptying, mind you. It's just that she didn't want to blow our relationship by barking orders right off the bat.
And in her defense, I made it a point to never scratch myself or pick my nose during our entire courtship. I didn't want her to see my flaws at least until our first child was born. Ten years later I scratch like a hound dog and don't particularly care who's watching.
The next day I learned that this Coalition for the Protection of Marriage in Nevada was not formed to protect me from my wife, but instead to protect my wife and I from gays.
It seems the group believes that marriage would be a whole lot better off if it was limited to males marrying females and vice versa.
The group believes that liberal judges, liberal media types and liberal liberals have made marriage less than special. Specifically, the group wants to make it clear in Nevada's Constitution that marriage is designed for people of the opposite sex as a way for them to legally live together for three years, have a couple of kids, divorce, fight over child support and custody and destroy their finances. And then do it all over again.
And if we we allowed gay couples to do that it would screw up the Circle of Life.
Never mind that Nevada laws are pretty clear that marriage needs to include at least one member of the male species and one from the female species.
Confused, I decided to go where I always go to get enlightenment - the Internet.
I did a keyword search on divorce, wondering how much research had been done showing that gays are out to destroy the sanctimony of marriage.
Scrolling down the long list of "Divorce" web sites, I found:
- The Coalition for Cooperative Divorce. (For those who couldn't cooperate in marriage.)
- Your Divorce Learning Center. (For dumb couples wishing to divorce.)
- Military Divorce Online (For soldiers who hate their spouses, but carry laptops in combat.)
- Children and Divorce (For children looking to divorce their parents.)
- Divorce in Ho Chi Minh City (For Vietnamese men who learned that there are three Vietnamese women for every one of them and that life is too short for marriage.)
- An article titled, "Viagra Pumping Up Divorce Rate." (So much energy, so little time.)
- Divorce Online (For married computer geeks who discovered that virtual sex is cheaper than the real thing.)
- How to Divorce As Friends (For couples with no friends.)
- Fast Divorce (For couples with The Trots.)
- The Tao of Divorce: A Woman's Guide To Winning (For women who won't be happy until their spouse is destroyed.)
- Laurie's Divorce (A Florida Rock Band with a CD titled "Marriage Is A Lot Like Hell.")
There was nothing on the web to suggest that marriage is being destroyed by gays. Not a single word connecting them to the 18.6 million children in America who live with only one parent (two-thirds of them a result of divorce). Nothing that ties them into a divorce rate in America almost double that of any country in the world.
I shut off my computer feeling pretty depressed. With no protection on the way and the NFL playoffs not yet concluded, I knew my weekend would be spent lining garbage cans and vacuuming cookie crumbs from my wife's station wagon.
It was comforting, on the other hand, to know she still loves me after 10 years of picking and scratching.
Jeff Ackerman is publisher and editor of the Nevada Appeal.
