One thing marriage is not is a right. By legal definition, a right is not something that somebody gives you; it is something that nobody can take away from you, though you can forfeit a right by conscious and willful violation of law. For example, liberty is a right; convicted felons do not enjoy that right until they have paid their debt to society and have that right redeemed to them.

Marriage on the other hand is a privileged contract between a man and a woman that entails traditional and lawful commitments and responsibilities and can be annulled or entered into a divorced state by either or both the parties petitioning the appropriate court of law.

If something can be taken away or fundamentally altered, it is not a right. Marriage therefore is not a right, it is a contractual validation of a committed relationship between a man and a woman.

Marriage has been defined as such for centuries and treating it as an “option” in any other type of relationship between anyone other than a man and a woman changes its meaning, worth, and function in our society. The real problem with this issue of same sex marriage is not about a “right”, it is about equivalence and when people honestly look at the differences in the relationships between a same sexed couple and a marriage they can see that there is not equivalence in function, intent, and contribution to society.

One contribution to society that marriage provides is continuity of familial relationships from one generation to the next. A same sex union cannot function in that capacity, therefore it is not the same as a marriage. The people of California accepted this fact by passing Prop 8 and the the Supreme Court of California agreed with them.

Whether your gay friends will be happy doesn’t depend on them being given the same social status of a married heterosexual couple. In fact, I know lots of married couples who have rarely been happy, so happiness is not a requirement to remain married or the lack of it to require a decision to dissolve the union. So, quit your whining and get on with your self-absorbed, narcissistic life.