the "childless" het couple was a good argument that caused no end of trouble. To be honest it was a darker sign I think, that heterosexual couples themselves had internalized cultural norms and the institution itself was no longer special so much to be worth protecting.

I think there were conservatives who realized this, and this was the reason why "the state should get out of marriage entirely" was pushed as a solution. That too was shot down harshly. At that point I personally gave up I think. It's like abortion...the issue is not "should a woman have a right to it," the issue is that now we live in a society where premarital sex is the norm and abortion is just restoring equity to the new norm.

The real numbers..look, it was literally hilarious to me that the same people who were arguing "marriage was only a piece of paper" in their own lives suddenly turned around and became strict advocates of it in the lives of a small minority of people. If religious people had said "okay, we accept gay people, but they need to follow the same teachings we do-be the husband of one husband, no premarital sex, and no sex outside marriage" everyone here would have railed against marriage as a tool of straight fascism or something.

I'm not meaning the low numbers means its should be revoked though. If anything it's the reverse. We did all that trouble, all that hate and strife...can you all please use it at least? When you fight desperately for the right for something, and in reality barely anyone seems to use it, what was the fighting done for?