MARRIAGEE MINDED Two men are planning to get married in Canada. I know, yawn. The twist: they’re straight.

In response, a gay rights spokesman sounds downright old-fashioned:

Words of warning came from Toronto lawyer Bruce Walker, a gay and lesbian rights activist.

“Generally speaking, marriage should be for love,” he said. “People who don’t marry for love will find themselves in trouble.”

Meanie! Trying to restrict marriage to his tired, outworn definition!

Seriously, I find it difficult to phrase an objection to this that does not basically hew to the anti-gay-marriage line: i.e. marriage in the west has traditionally been between two people who want to have sex with each other. The objection to this argument is the same one that pro-gay-marriage forces employed against those who claimed that marriage was for child-rearing: we allow all sorts of people who cannot have sex with each other (certain classes of parapalegics, for example) to wed, so how can you exclude these people on this grounds? I think it’s funny, but if this sort of practice becomes more than a stunt, it seems very likely to me to weaken an already ailing institution.

On the other hand, it doesn’t seem very likely to become widespread. Most people who get married will continue to do so for the good, old fashioned purpose of having frequent sexual intercourse. God bless ’em.