Oh please.. In that case don't get married. Nobody is telling gays not to live together (and nobody should), but the point of getting married is to found a family, which is meant to include "the raising of children" - and it is NOT possible for gays to have children between themselves: Even if they adopt or raise the children of one of them from a previous heterosexual relationship, what is clear is that you need, at the origin, a MAN and a WOMAN to have that child(ren). So either way, you need the intervention of a man AND a woman to be able to found a family somewhere along the way. And that's what the marriage is supposed to do: ensure an efficient and protected environment for the birth and raising of children; and thus the perpetuation of the species. However, nobody is, nor should be, stopping people from doing what they want in the privacy of their homes; but please let's remember that marriage is NOT a PRIVATE institution, it is a PUBLIC one linking two individuals with the rest of the society.

It is a false premise to say that the sole purpose of marriage is to provide stability for children.

In fact, the laws governing marriage also ensure that individuals within the marriage not be left to their own devices in the event of illness, unemployment, and the like.

Marriage also secures commitment from each individual to provide for the support of the other, in whatever ways that support is to be given. For example, whether there are children present or not, the husband/wife is obligated to care for the other. That is why we provide alimony in the case of divorce when there is a significant difference in income between the marriage partners, EVEN IN THE ABSENCE of children.

Marriage also provides for partners to make decisions about the other person's care when the other person is in one way or another incapacitated.

Marriage provides for the inheritance of property, whether or not children are presence.

So essentially, John, your comment has no legal foundation.

I'd like to see more discussion (rationally only) regarding the idea that "gay is a lifestyle". While I don't agree with that statement, many still say that, and some even say that it's a lifestyle "just like being straight is". What do you think?

There is NO such thing as "one" or "A" Gay Life Style!!!!
Unless you're willfully ignorant, it's always a huge mistake for someone to make gross assumptions about others lives. I have taught & worked among gay people of every personality type, every build, every moral stance,every political identity,religion,ethnicity,race & temperment! For every gay person,there is a straight person similar in every single way,even the way they "naturally" find themselves emotionally & romantically attracted to their life partner, the only difference...is the gender of their "BELOVED". And it is about LOVE,at the very core of every individuals life that has any REAL MEANING, it's the ONLY THING worth living & fighting for. Not useless knicknacks & rags that end up sooner or later in the county dump. Just don't trash your fellow human beings cause they're inwardly born with a gift for falling in love with someone just like them.
There are as many kinds of Gay PEOPLE as there are Heterosexuals, each are different individuals in their own way. This stereotyping & fear-mongering of right-wingers, not unlike the hateful propaganda campaigns against Jewish people perpetrated by the Nazis leading up to the most monumental watershed historical Horror of the 20th century,the murder of eleven million systematically in Death Camps, 6 million who were Jews, of which 1 & 1/2 were children, designed to denigrate & de-humanize fellow gay human U.S. Citizens among the Hetero population. Gay DOESN't mean promiscuity,drug addicts,immoral anymore then it would for heterosexuals!