Gay rights and fanning the flames of bigotry to bring out the base

In an effort to bring out the Republican base in the November elections, Bush and the Congress are pushing an effort to pass a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage. This is stupid for so many reasons. The main one is that no amendment that enshrines discrimination in the Constitution is legitimate, as other attempts have either been failures or later reversed when people finally realized the discrimination was wrong. Banning gay marriage is a failed policy. There are homosexuals, normal people with normal sexual urges that happen to fall outside the Christian dogma but can be fully functional, stable relationships that have the nuturing capability to last and raise children. Reuters reports that:

Several religious leaders joined [Colorado Republican Sen. Wayne] Allard to argue that the ban is needed to counteract an array of social ills, from rising divorce rates to out-of-wedlock births.

This argument is bullshit for so many reasons, I don't know where to start, but I guess I'll start with out-of-wedlock births. Gay marriage has NOTHING TO DO WITH out-of-wedlock births. By definition, gays cannot have out of wedlock children (except for the fact that they can have children together with help and the Republican bigots won't let them marry). Second, rising divorce rates are not related to gay marriage because gays cannot get married (except to the opposite sex). This may be more of a problem than gay marriage (which isn't a problem). The increasing divorce rates are more likely caused by a more relaxed stance towards two consenting adults of the same sex being able to be attracted to one another. Any higher divorce rates, aside from other factors that play a far more significant role in it, are due to the harsh cultural bigotry of the expectations that men must marry women, and then did, despite being gay. Now that some of the bigotry (at least among enlightened members of society) has been lifted, people who have been gay all their life are able to escape from the enforced heterosexual marriages in which they have been bound. Gay marriage will do more to help in terms of the (bullshit) idea of the "sanctity of marriage" and lowering divorce rates. However, it will do nothing for out-of-wedlock births, except for those involving homosexual parents. Gay marriage should be legalized, not banned.