Misery loves company... let gays and lesbians in on it too.

The New York State Senate rejected a measure on Wednesday to permit same-sex marriage in the Empire State. Big, huge FAIL.

The 38 "no" votes to 24 "yes" votes managed to prop up groups like the National Organization for Marriage, which opposed the law, while serving up more disappointment for gay-rights activists in one of the country's most liberal states.

That is an important footnote to the debate over same-sex marriage. If one of the most liberal states in the Union -- New York -- can't get enough votes together to get the paperwork rolling on gay marriage can there be any reasonable expectation to see it approved in less liberal or conservative states?

You already know the answer so why spell it out.

Five states (Connecticut, Iowa, Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Vermont) have already legalized same-sex marriage. But that is overshadowed by the 40 states who have passed specific laws to ban same-sex marriage.

Maine was the sixth state to approve same-sex marriages, but voters repealed the law by a slim margin last month.

The California state supreme court also gave the green light to same-sex marriage in the Golden State, but voters repealed that decision by a margin of 52-percent to 48-percent at the voting booth last year.

Now the ultra-liberal state legislature in the great Garden State of New Jersey is doing all it can to avoid weighing in on the issue. It looks like the writing is on the wall for same-sex marriage.

Let's get some perspective here.

Just because I happen to be a male and am attracted to females doesn't give me any exclusive rights to marriage and all the pain and aggravation that brings. If two men, or two women, want to sign on the dotted line to be just as miserable as I once was when I was married, well more power to ya.

If gay men and lesbian women want to shell out thousands upon thousands of dollars to get out of a bad marriage, they should be able to reach in their bank accounts and hand over the king's ransom to a lawyer just like the heterosexual community.

Let's get some perspective here.

What goes on in the bedrooms of people around the globe is nobody's business but theirs, unless they turn on their camcorders and share the footage with the rest of us... think Paris Hilton, Pam Anderson, Lindsey Lohan, and even Toyna Harding. (Okay, I'm sorry!! Don't think about Tonya Harding.)

Look. There are a lot of people out in the world who are repulsed at the idea or mental imagery of gay sex (well unless it's girl-on-girl sex and then every male out there is all for it). Be repulsed. But keep it to yourself. I assure you nobody cares about what turns you off, just as much as they don't care what turns you on either.

If you were brought up in a repressive family, religion, culture or biosphere, there is only one way to deal with the idea of two men or two women getting hitched... GET OVER IT!

Let's get some more perspective here.

The Declaration of Independence (you remember that document, right?) promises us "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness."

Nowhere in the document does it say anything about "except gays and lesbians."

Nowhere in the document does it says "except for anything that might offend someone else."

The preamble of the U.S. Constitution starts out with "We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity."

Nowhere does it say gays and lesbians are excluded from the Justice, Tranquility, common defence, general Welfare, or Liberty.

And I suppose we should have followed along with the ideas of denying Blacks and women the right to vote. They were less than people at one time too, and men couldn't stomach the idea of having either of those groups walking into the sacred voting booth.

And isn't that the salient argument of most people who oppose gay marriage? It goes against the sacred institution of marriage.

Try again. If marriage is so sacred why are lawyers raking in huge profits in divorce courts around the country?

The idea of same-sex seems wrong to so many, but the promises of our Declaration of Independence and Constitution are more powerful and far more important than our individual sense of right and wrong.

Let the gays and lesbians be miserable -- they deserve it just as much as any heterosexual couple. Why would you want to deny them that simple marital pleasure?