Here’s a novel -- novel in the sense of being both invented and inventive -- argument against gay marriage. It was published in the Philadelphia Inquirer as part of the newspaper’s ongoing but intermittent “Voicebox” series (think talk radio but on paper), and it comes from Esther Kurtz of Elverson, Pa., who it appears assembled her thoughts not with pen and paper or with fingers and PC, but with a broken Dictaphone:

Gay marriage will further burden divorce courts already overloaded with issues related to custody, communication breakdowns, and abuse. Then the judges will be asked to step in and become legal caretakers, and that’s not good, either, for the government to do. I suspect the gay revolution is fueled not necessarily by love, hope, and righteous indignation but by financial and dependecy [sic] issues. But, as many of us know, marriage doesn’t help solve these problems. So I think we should wait for the laws to be made in light of the crisis we already have with marriage and families.

Yep, that’s us. Just in it for the money. And to wreak havoc upon divorce courts.

[Note: For a wiser, and more humorous, look at the subject, see “Will Gays Prove to be the Saviours of Marriage?” by Tim Ferguson, The Age (Melbourne), hence “saviours,” February 23. (Thanks to reader H.F.)]

[Post-publication addendum: If you have a few minutes -- And really, when you think about it, who doesn’t? -- why not wander over and check out, oh, I don’t know, Dear Mary?]