Marriage under attack!1!

This is a legally-recognised marriage in Australia:

MOST couples marry for love, but two university students are not ashamed to say they did it for money – an extra $60 a week.

University of Adelaide undergraduates Fletcher O’Leary, 21, and Lavinia Emmett-Grey, 23, yesterday legally married in protest over Youth Allowance…

Mr O’Leary now will be able to qualify as an “independent” under Youth Allowance requirements, raising his potential student income support from $248 to $377 a fortnight – just more than $60 more a week.

Their point is entirely correct, of course. It is ludicrous that students receive more if they’re married (or wealthier) – it’s not like single students have cheaper bills. It’s also quite unfair that people living with their partner receive less than independent adults – the payment system is simply unjust, and the government has deliberately designed it this way in order to save a few bucks, indifferent to the suffering it causes.

But I’d also like to highlight what this says about the Marriage Act: marriage is a “sacred” institution in our society that for some unspecifiable reason would be “destroyed” if extended to gay people, is it? Because they’d somehow take it less seriously than heterosexual couples? The qualities of a marriage are more demonstrated by the fact that there’s one man and one woman than anything to do with lifelong commitment and love?

Honestly, you’d think committed homosexual couples would do more to bolster the institution than many of the heterosexual couples indulging in it today.