$5 million federal grant to ensure future employment of divorce lawyers

We're not saying "Get married," but, y'know... get married.

A growing percentage of Americans aren't marrying. Federal statistics report 7.1 marriages per 1,000 people in 2008, down from 10 per 1,000 in 1986.

Faced with such numbers, the federal government is funding a $5 million national media campaign, launching this month, that extols the virtues of marriage for 18- to 30-year-olds. The campaign includes ads on Facebook and MySpace, videos on YouTube, spots on radio talk shows, ads in magazines and public transit and a new Web site, TwoOfUs.org.

"We're not telling people, 'Get married,' but, 'Don't underestimate the benefits of marriage,' " said Paul Amato, a Pennsylvania State University sociologist and adviser to the federally funded National Healthy Marriage Resource Center, which is spearheading the campaign.

Research suggests benefits for those who marry: better health, greater wealth, more happiness and improved well-being for kids.

This is ridiculous, in no uncertain terms. Marriage is not for everyone, the same way that having kids isn't for everyone. I am happier married than I would have been single, but even this had very specific requirements to work.

I wanted to get married. The woman I married wanted to get married. We wanted to get married after dating for a certain amount of time, and not before a certain age. We were on the same page as to our desired parenting status (non, for both of us). And those are just what I consider the dealbreakers.

All the potential "benefits" of marriage come with caveats. Namely, they're not evenly distributed to everyone. Just because the "average" happiness score for married people is higher doesn't mean a) it was higher for everyone in the sample; b) it was higher across gender; c) the samples in these studies are representative of all married people (remember, not everyone is willing to be a research subject, and I dare say if it's a marriage study, people who are more happily married are more likely to volunteer); d) they factor in divorced people, who obviously had to be married in order to get divorced.

Plus, they're not only targeting younger people, they're targeting them on Myspace. Seriously, if you're going to get married because a Myspace ad told you to, you should definitely not get married. And you should use multiple forms of contraception. Forever.

Also, if marriage has all these benefits, isn't it cruel for the federal government to prevent homosexuals from partaking in them?