The Sanctity of Marriage

I have a few questions for Rick Santorum about his views on protecting the sanctity of marriage via not allowing gays to marry. I have been married for nearly twenty years and I have to say that I in no way feel that my marriage is at risk by allowing the same-sex couples to share in the tradition. I know that many married people feel this way and since Mr. Santorum proposes a Federal Law to ban same sex marriage I think that he needs to explain himself a little bit better on this topic. When I think about the possible destruction of the sanctity of marriage the first I think about is whether or not marriage is a entirely sanctimonious instituition and whether or not it is really threatened and in need of protection. The answer to the first of these is that marriage is not an entirely santimonious (holy, or sacred) institution. The fact that people can go to a court house and become legally married lessens the supposed sanctity. The last I checked the JP doesn't include the holy. Now I think about whether or not sanctimonious marriage and non-sanctimonious marriage is truly threatened and in need of protection and the answer imo is yes but same sex couples entering into the tradition are not the reason it. The threat to the tradition of marriage is quite simply the failure of marriage....divorce. The divorce rates have been rising for decades and currently hover in the vicinity of 40-50% of all marriages. Now I ask myself why is this happening? I have found various reasons listed in the statistics, but the main one is usually money. So, Mr. Santorum.. if economics has such an impact on the institution of marriage then why do you advocate for policies that over the last four decades have statistically proven to lower the wages of the American family? How can you ignore the real reasons for the failures of the insitution of marriage while advocating for laws that would take away the civil rights of citizens who did nothing to contribute to the failure. How can you stand beside a serial adulterer at the debates and speak of protecting marriage yet say nothing about his failures. I think you have some explaining to do.