Marriage. What does it mean to you? Is it a religious binding, a legal bond, a lifelong friendship?

Ill tell you what it is to me. Its a public announcement of ones love for another. And its beautiful. Absolutely stunning. Thats the issue here. Marriage. More specifically, gay marriage. Now this is a concept I find difficult to understand. You know, I didnt gay park my car this morning. I dont have gay lunch every day. So surely gay marriage is most simply known as marriage? Now all you heterosexual couples out there, would you trade your marriage for a civil partnership? Doesnt it seem a little bit unfair to you? The legal rights are all the same; exactly the same, in fact, so why not give it the same name? Its still love, right? Its still one person loving another and that person loving the first back. It seems to me that the only thing stopping society calling it marriage is the Bible. So the Bible bans homosexuality? I believe the verse which does so is in the book of Leviticus. However, does it not also say in the same book that the following things are prohibited: round haircuts eating shrimp shaving sideburns over 50% polyester shirts getting tattoos allowing people without testicles into church a wife defending her husband in a fight by grabbing the genitals of the attacker. So not everything in the Bible is taken word-for-word, it seems. And if we dont follow these rules, why should the 18th verse of the 20th chapter of the book of Leviticus be taken so literally? In Deuteronomy 22, it is written that a marriage is only valid if the wife is a virgin, and if she isnt she should be executed without pity. Well I dont know about you but Im not about to go out slaughtering women who didnt want to wait. Does this also mean that gays are not allowed to have faith or belief in God? Surely one of the central messages of Christianity is that everybody can have their faith? The Bible is a book written 1700 years ago about events which happened at the dawn of time, when the people who wrote it had as much knowledge of the world as the average modern-day five year old. What makes it so special that it dictates our choice of sexual partner? Its archaic. I would now like to make a short list of things that will definitely happen as a direct result of gay marriage being legalised: 1. Gay people will marry other gay people. I would now like to make a short list of things that definitely will not happen as a direct result of gay marriage being legalised: 1. An unstoppable disease will ravage and eliminate humanity on Earth. 2. The moon will fall out of the sky. 3. World War Three will break out and hostilities will lead to cell-mutating nuclear bombs being dropped left, right and centre. 4. The terrorists will win and we will be forced to live under their rule. 5. Schools will begin teaching kids from an early age how to have sex. With diagrams. 6. Suddenly everyone will become gay and there will be no more children and humans will die out.

So there we have it. A simple, concise summary of the results of legalising gay marriage. Fifty years ago, a protester mightve said Inter-racial marriage? Thats ridiculous. Im just protecting the sanctity of marriage. Are we saying the same thing today? Same-sex marriage? Thats ridiculous. Im just protecting the sanctity of marriage. So, yknow, youre protecting the sanctity of marriage by allowing Britney Spears 55-hour just for fun marriage to stand. Larry King is on his ninth divorce and you think that letting dudes marry dudes and chicks marry other chicks is ruining the integrity of your marriage? You are allowing that to represent the sanctity of marriage yet the idea of even considering allowing a gay relationship to have a lifelong, legal commitment is unthinkable? Is this the message were passing on to the next generation? Well let me tell you something. Standards change. As the new generation grows up, so do the norms of society. In the 60s it was normal to disallow people of ethnic minorities from marrying white people, being in the same public places as white people and riding the same buses as white people. Next time you go out into your town centre, I want you to do something. I want you to stop, and look around. Just look. How many black people would you see? How many Chinese people would be there, happily hanging around and shopping to their hearts content? It has taken over half a century for these people to get the racial rights or as I like to call them, human rights that they deserve. We cannot do the same now. We cannot allow our world to be so narrowminded for so long on this issue. If you dont approve of gay marriage, dont marry a gay. Its as simple as that. Marriage is not between a man and a woman, its between love and love. I leave this point with the immortal words of Peter Griffin: If gays want to get married and be miserable like the rest of us, I say we should let em.