Marriage, happiness, and justice for all

. . . or at least all who want 'em.

A few minutes ago I wrote a really brilliant pro-gay-marriage letter to our CA senators via this link, which my friend L very kindly sent me. Doubtless she knew that I was busy/lazy enough to have trouble finding time to do this on my own!

I was hoping the website would CC me on what I wrote, because trust me, it really was great. But they didn't. So I'm recapping here, in hopes it makes L happy :)

As a straight married woman I very, very strongly support gay marriage. It's hard enough to find the right person to spend the rest of your life with, without having half the population artificially but legally cut out of the running. And I'm appalled & insulted that the "straight marriage only" folks would imagine that gay marriage could threaten my own relationship (or anybody else's, either).

I support love & happiness & if somebody thinks they've found the person they should marry, then more power to them. We should be cheering their faith and optimism, not trying to make life harder for them.

I also support gay marriage because stable two-parent families are best for children. Happy children with solid families are good for the other children they go to school with, and on average grow up into happy, stable adults who do good things for society. And if gay married couples choose to adopt, there are fewer kids in foster care - again, better for everybody.

Not only that, but a ton of studies show that married folks spend less time in hospitals, have longer lifespans, are on average happier, and a bunch of other good stuff. Again, all this benefits society as a whole (and reduces government spending on things like ER visits).

Not only do I support gay marriage, it seems like such an obviously good idea that I can't imagine any reason not to support it. I'm only surprised that support is necessary - shouldn't we have said, "yup, that's a no-brainer," and moved on by now?