2 hours, 11 minutes ago
By Rick Hampson and Karen S. Peterson, USA TODAY
President Bush (news - web sites) wants a constitutional amendment to preserve marriage. But what, exactly, would it preserve? Traditional marriage already has been transformed, not by gays and lesbians who want in, but by straights who want out.
What the president called civilization's "most fundamental institution" is, in America, a rather peculiar one.
It's an institution that 59% of us currently inhabit and that more than nine in 10 of us eventually embrace, at least once and for a little while. It correlates with health, wealth and happiness. It's the acknowledged gold standard for raising children. And it has been extolled in cultural touchstones from Father Knows Best to Sex and the City.
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Divorce. A Census study showed that 73% of women who married between 1980 and 1984 reached their 10th anniversary, compared with 90% of women who married between 1945 and 1949. Although divorce leveled off in the 1990s, as many as 50% of new marriages end in Splitsville.
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=676&e=1&u=/usatoday/20040226/ts_usatoday/thestateofourunionsGee, ya mean Gays & Lesbians AREN'T responsible for the failure of approximately 50% of all marriages? What a surprise!
edited to add link (sorry!)