Is Marriage becoming the new obsolete?

I got these stats from Time Magazine:

Is marriage becoming obsolete?:

62% of unmarried parents living with their partner say YES.
46% of unmarried also say YES
45% High School education or less say YES
39% of ALL groups say YES
31% of married say YES
27% of college educated folk say YES

My personal favorite is that 44% of Americans under 30 say marriage is heading for extinction yet only 5% of those in that age group do not want to marry.

First and foremost, I think we can all say that marriage has changed.  Older women marry younger men.  Stay-at-Home Dads aren't that uncommon anymore.  There are 2 income families, no income families, and a woman who became a man and married a woman but saved her/his uterus and had babies.

Things have changed.

Now, I have never quite understood all the judgement around marriage. The sacredness of the union, in the sense that everyone is throwing around these days.

People get married in Vegas for 3 hours and then get it annulled, shout out to Ms. Spears.  Hell, Amy Winehouse was allowed to marry and I doubt she can remember anything from the past 5 years at all. People get divorced, people cheat, people lie, and people beat... on each other. I was going with the whole rhyme thing.

On the other hand, people yearn for it. People make drama about it. When is he going to ask me?!  When am I going to find someone?!

We put so much pressure on a concept. It's a concept people.  An idea of 2 people coming together to take on life as a team.  Yes, it's a beautiful concept. Doubly yes, no one wants to die alone.  Triple yes, sometimes after many year of marriage, you double think that whole dying alone thing.

In Brazil, if you move in with each other, you are referred to as married.  The line of thought is that you live together and basically are, just sans the paper.  Personally, I think it's because it's a bitch to rent and get your own place in Brazil. You have to buy a washer, an oven, and a fridge for goodness sake.  That's commitment.

What I really don't get is that with all the socially acceptable changes happening around marriage, why the big old Red Haring tradition argument?  We have blended families, unmarried couples raising children, Single Mothers, Divorce, 3rd marriages, Jewish/Hindu wedding ceremonies, and so on and so forth.  You name it, we've done it.  The great thing about traditions is that they can always be adapted and new ones can be made.

So my question is, why the drama about gay marriage? Hell, 39% of you (44% under 30) think it's on the out anyway. It's the tube sock of tradition these days.  It never really goes out of style but it kind of does at the same time.

So what gives?  We don't like pairs?  I mean, after the woman/man had a baby person got married, we're basically saying it comes down to genitals. That's genitalism or something?

Personally, I have nothing against genitals nor gay marriage. I think we straight people have screwed the sacred union over enough. Let's just try to add in another group and see if they can help turn it around.  Maybe we can bedazzle over the stains left on the so-called pious tradition.

And don't even comment on my blog that gays can basically be married. Didn't we LONG ago cover that separate but equal is NOT equal?  Do you not remember history class?  Shame shit, different stink.

So what are you thoughts?  Is marriage on the outs?  Should we open our hypocritically restricted laws? Let's start a dialog