By David G. Savage, Los Angeles Times

January 26, 2013, 7:20 p.m.

WASHINGTON — Marriage should be limited to unions of a man and a woman because they alone can “produce unplanned and unintended offspring,” opponents of gay marriage have told the Supreme Court.

By contrast, when same-sex couples decide to have children, “substantial advance planning is required,” said Paul D. Clement, a lawyer for House Republicans…

The traditional marriage laws “reflect a unique social difficulty with opposite-sex couples that is not present with same-sex couples — namely, the undeniable and distinct tendency of opposite-sex relationships to produce unplanned and unintended pregnancies,” wrote Clement, a solicitor general under President George W. Bush. “Unintended children produced by opposite-sex relationships and raised out-of-wedlock would pose a burden on society.”

via Gay marriage opponents take unusual tack with Supreme Court – latimes.com.

Hey there! Does anybody else find this line of reasoning ridiculous? Marriage as a REMEDY for unwanted pregnancy? Talk about a NARROW finding…

Following that reasoning women over fifty should not be allowed to marry AT ALL because they can no longer produce offspring. Of course, men up to the age of say… ninety, while their swimmers may be slow, could still fertilize an egg so they should be able to marry as long as they can get it up. I’d love to be in line when said gentleman applies for a marriage license. How exactly would he prove he was worthy?

And, an eighty year old couple who have found love together after their spouses have died should not be allowed to marry. However, if the eighty year old guy wants to marry Raven, the topless dancer from Jumbo’s Jiggle Room, that’s okay, they should have lots of kids!

What about cancer patients who have had radiation treatments and are sterile?  No marriage for them – they should just be grateful they’re alive!

If the purpose of marriage (in Paul Clement’s brain) is to take care of unwanted babies, then any responsible couple who avoids getting pregnant outside of marriage, either by abstinence or contraception, should join gay couples in limbo for the right to marry.

That’s all…

So, along with saving the Earth on a day-to-day basis, my repetitive rituals helped bring about the downfall of uber-popular reality show “Jon and Kate Plus 8″. You’re welcome.

And now I feel ashamed.

After all, despite my hatred of these kinds of shows (which strangely doesn’t help me summon the willpower to change the channel), the end (being nigh) comes at the cost of 8 innocent, aggravatingly cute kids.

Divorce is an American institution. It’s a bit ironic so many Americans get knotted up over gay marriage as a supposed attack on the ”sacred bonds of marriage”; it’s divorce–not tying the knot–that is the real institution. We’ve long ago passed the 50/50 mark. In Vegas, that’s great odds–no wonder so many people run off to Vegas to get married. They’re looking for luck in all the RIGHT places.

Apparently, Jon wasn’t overly fond of turning his life into a public spectacle. Who can blame him? A couple years ago he was the proud father of twins and what appeared to be a healthy marriage. But Kate apparently decided two wasn’t the magic number, and like aVegas gambler she rolled the reproductive dice (albeit with a little spermatic help from Jon). And what does one do when one suddenly has eight children through the miracles of modern OB/GYN sorcery? Call in the cameras! 

Though I’m sure these comments are enough to brand me a misogynist, let me be clear: I realize it takes two to tango. Well, unless you make a withdrawal from your friendly neighborhood sperm bank. But in this case, Jon COULD have said: “No, Kate. I don’t think I’m ready for more children.”

That said, perhaps you will argue that they had no way of knowing it would be multiples. Great. But in the end, 8 is the hand they were dealt, and 8 is most definately ENOUGH. So fast forward a bit, and the Jon and Kate Plus 8 show becomes America’s guilty pleasure and secret addiction. For some weird reason, peeking in on this family– like a real-life version of the popular computer game “The Sims”–has become entertainment. And, like The Sims, it’s a little bit creepy. Instead of living our own lives, we watch someone else live theirs.

And the irreconcilable differences that drove a stake into the bloody heart of Jon and Kate’s 10-year marriage was doubtlessly helped along with trying to raise 8 kids in front of a national audience.

But the sacrifice isn’t the marriage; it’s the children who will pay the highest price. Sure, they’ve got a million-dollar home and the money (indirectly paid by the audience…that is, us) to make life more comfortable in many ways than it might’ve been had the show been unsuccessful or if it had never been. Sure, the kids have their own individual play houses and all the toys any kid could ever want. But this doesn’t seem worth the cost, when you add up the bill.

The Aztecs had another method of human sacrifice…one that’s not so well-known as ripping hearts out on top of stepped pyramids in order to keep the sun shining bright and happy. The rain god, Tlaloc, had his butcher’s bill, too. And, though not as bloody, it was far more horrifying. The priests, in an effort to please their god, would scare and torture children…the more the little tykes cried, the more rain the god would supposedly send. This procession of crying kids led inexorably towards sacred wells called cenotes where the kids were thrown in to drown.

TLC, in an attempt to keep the money rolling in, are little better than Aztec priests. Though Jon and Kate made their choices–and in so doing, made the choices for their children as well–I imagine it was hard to resist $75,000 an episode. With 10 mouths to feed, it was an easy choice to make. But TLC isn’t a human services organization or a church or a public assistance agency. They are in business to make money…and the show apparently WILL go on.

But I won’t be watching.

Of course, this could all be some great big publicity stunt. Perhaps Jon-n-Kate are becoming Scientologists..? Perhaps they’ve come to their senses and have decided to give a few of the kids back..? (By the way, are post-natal abortions legal in their state?) At $75,000 an episode, it would be foolish to believe J-and-K don’t consider the effects a divorce would have on their eight little money shots.

But TLC wins no matter what. The shows producers could get a LOT of mileage out of a divorce: think about the long dolly shot of Jon walking forlornly to his car, the backseat and trunk stuffed with whatever remnants of his long-buried bachelorhood Kate has allowed him to keep. He’s off to his post-divorce apartment, where TLC’s “John Crew” record stock footage of him swallowing a handful of Prozac with a liter of Gilbey’s Vodka and crying in his furnitureless living room as he flips through wallet-sized shots of the kids as an emo soundtrack plays softly.

Kate, meanwhile, is gorging on Ben and Jerry’s and screaming at a terrified TLC intern that she was “made for better things, you bastard!” Then she finds Jon’s testicles in the back of the freezer, where she had put them in 2005.

Yes, just one more night and we get to see another family corrupted by our American Idol-worshipping, fame-and-fortune-obsessed culture implode on national television.

Yee-haa.

Most of the “suck” comes from the “Kate” of the aforementioned Jon and Kate. Not that Jon escapes suck-free. It was his seed, after all, that planted this Eight Is Enough garden in the fertile soil of uber-bitch Kate.

The episode I squirmed painfully through proves my point:

“I’m sorry, honey,” Kate says, turning from the camera to her mate. “Can you please stop breathing so loudly?”

BREATHING too loudly? My Good God, can you imagine the crap she pulls when they’re NOT in front of half of America..? If Jon is such a wuss that he puts up with this then in my ever-so-humble opinion, he’s getting what he deserves.

But apparently a sizable contingent of my fellow Americans have such meaningless lives that taking care of 8 snot engines vicariously through this pair is high entertainment. Personally, I’d rather watch that SuperShammy infomercial than see Jon and Kate again. I mean, WHY exactly are these two heroes? Is mass producing children in an already overburdened planet something to be proud of? NOBODY should be having 8 kids. It’s reprehensible and irresponsible. Unless you’re a trillionaire, you are sliding into an economic hole that you will likely never climb out of.