Divorce equality for gays

After what I assume were 72 grueling, reality-TV fueled days of matrimony, Kim Kardashian and Kris Humphries filed for divorce early this week, leaving millions of fans shocked and saddened.

I can only dream of being so lucky.

Spending $20 million of other people's money on a wedding to marry a man I met less than a year earlier sounds wonderful. Deciding a little more than two months later that "irreconcilable differences" have torn that marriage to pieces, even better; it's the sacred bond of holy matrimony at its finest.

Given current trends in public opinion, I may be able to stop dreaming of marriage and actually tie the knot by the time I find myself in a committed relationship. The latest Gallup poll, from May of this year, found that 53% of Americans support legal gay marriage, the first ever time a majority of those polled favored same-sex marriage in the poll's history.

My wedding was planned a couple of years ago over drinks in Zeta Hiaasen: it is to be held in a ski lodge (a fireplace is a must) with "Baby it's cold outside" at the top of the playlist (I hear there's a Harry Connick Jr. version; that would work). I need an escape from this sauna we call Florida.

Then, maybe three months after I settle down, I can decide it isn't for me. Monogamy is just too damn difficult to keep up. One fight will make both of us feel like we've fallen into a ditch too deep to dig out of, despite the generations of couples before us who recovered from the same difficulties.

Or maybe I'll be disappointed my dream marriage isn't so dreamy; instead, it's too real. I'll take one look at it, the repetitive small talk, the bills, all the little things, and I'll want to run away. I know it is inevitable; it took me barely a month this summer to grow immensely tired of a guy I was into pretty considerably when we met.

There's only one solution: legalize gay divorce. In the name of all things equal rights, I demand the ability to wed, and subsequently leave, anybody I damn well please. Who knows, we may even have a kid somewhere in between, and when our relationship ends, we can simply split the parenting duties. This is the American dream we're fighting for, right? Marriage equality?

The truth is, I'm not even sure I want to get married, a sentiment shared by a growing number of my young adult peers, both gay and straight. I support marriage equality, I couldn't imagine being against it, but sometimes I wonder what exactly we're fighting for. The way activists yearn for gay marriage make it seem like the end all and be all of equality, as if two men at the alter will wash away all the negative stigmas currently attached to the LGBTQ community.

If anything, being accepted into a clearly broken institution is just a chance to be as dysfunctional as the rest of society, to prove as incompetent as the 50% of current newlyweds that wind up divorced. I don't want to see that happen.

My only hope is that having to earn the right to marry will make it a little more, well, sacred. Maybe not taking marriage for granted our entire lives will make us think a little more before popping the question, or motivate us to resolve problems instead of dissolving the relationship. Not being guaranteed the ability or even the right to have kids may make us appreciate what we get and take our role as parents seriously.

But if it works out differently, and I've blown through three husbands by age 35 (for the second time this year, no pun intended), then so be it. If two months becomes too much marriage to handle, I can exercise the rights earned for me by gay activists through the years and end my union with the same blatant disregard for the sanctity of marriage as a heterosexual couple.

Thanks for blazing the trail, Kim, and Britney, and all the other short-lived holy unions that came before you.