Celebrities are a good example for the little people, proving that you don't have to be actually attractive to get laid. Age doesn't matter a bit. Everyone wears scarves or flips their collar up and you have enough money to go on vacation into infinity. It's exactly like real life, but with more vacation. It is our firm belief that celebrity couples are the way a decadent society expresses itself, and in the A-Rod-Madonna era, these five other pairings boggle the mind and tug at the heart:There's a lot of weird pairings going on right now, putting the world in a similar position to when Archduke Ferdinand was assassinated in 1914. (Legend has it John Mayer's to blame for that one.) Celebrity couples were the way Nostradamus made predictions, and they are the basis of whatever the heck Simon Baker does every week on The Mentalist. We've already explained the reason for the A-Rod-Madonna connection, and you can add these five signs to the mix:

Yesterday, Connecticut joined Massachusetts and California in declaring that consenting adults can marry each other—even if they're gay! The Connecticut Supreme Court struck down the state's civil union law and declared that same sex couples have a constitutional right to wed. Oh, and litigious, wing-nut "Family Values" groups take note: The ruling cannot be appealed, dicks! The new law goes into effect on October 28th—just in time for a wave of awesome gay and lesbian Halloween theme weddings!

The sad television image: while single people run around coupling with any and all sweaty bodies in their path, married people are sick of each other and never have sex. Not tonight, honey! The happier truth: in real life married people actually do have sex! Or so we hear. This disconnect is a matter of concern to certain segments of the right wing pro-marriage fringe, who feel that TV's bias against showing boring husband-and-wife sex is-I don't know-making people not get married? It's unclear. What we know for sure is that our networks must do more to promote fucking within marriage; particularly NBC, which has an obvious preference for "bestiality and necrophilia":

There have been all kinds of rumors floating around about Marc Jacobs marrying Lorenzo Matrone, the upmarket Brazilian alternative to former rentboy Jason Preston. There was even a report of a very special brunch in Paris to be followed by a vacation together, which sounded suspiciously like a reception and honeymoon. To get to the bottom of the story, Fashion Week Daily went to the trouble of tracking down not one but TWO of the designer's flacks (GOD can that man NEVER commit??). Spoiler: Jacobs, officially at least, continues to enjoy the precious freedoms necessary for his admirable life as a sexual libertine. That is to say, he is not married. But just to be extra sure, Fashion Week Daily interviewed everyone who has ever worked for, talked to or looked at Marc Jacobs, ever:

That Slate lady-blog has been talking about divorce all week, all because Maureen Dowd wrote a column about how no man on Earth is good enough to marry her (or "you"). And because Ellen Tien wrote an O Magazine piece about how her husband is an utter shithole who she can't wait to divorce, right ladies? Anyway. For those keeping score at home:

Breaking: the (female) fiancée of probably gay Florida governor Charlie Crist owns a company that manufactures beards. [HuffPo]

Last April, the New York Times Magazine published a piece by Benoit Denizet-Lewis that seemed to be about how lots and lots of young men were getting gay married. 700 men age 29 or younger got hitched in Massachusetts. Trend! Or, as Choire Sicha put it in his excoriation of the story, "what else can the story be when an author points out a small group of people that are united by a common activity?" Now, California offers the gay marriage as well. So surely this trend of so many of the young gay men getting gay married must be rising still! Not according to today's Times!

Do you ever feel like the headline of every CNN story should be "Middle-class Americans leading lives of quiet desperation"? Semi-related: "America's Wives Nagging, Clingy"

Did you hear about that music superstar's secret wedding to his longtime musician girlfriend? Yes, you probably did. Now Lou Reed copied Jay-Z and had his own secret wedding, to Laurie Anderson. He'd also like to remind you that he's the original rapper. [ContactMusic]

We're bringing Glaring Omissions back! We get so many missives each week, that some things slip through the cracks by accident or completely on purpose. Today we have three little bits for you (just gaining momentum, I swears). Shotguns, marriages, and a Real Housewife await you after the jump.

"We are a construction company and we have job sites, we lose people... You better treat her right, because I have a .45 and a shovel." –Donald Trump, Jr., at his mother Ivana's wedding. Then he complimented her "great boobs." This seems like yet another great argument against marrying a Trump of any kind, even Ivanka, the relatively attractive and normal one. [Gatecrasher via Daily Intel]

Hey, so yes, you, you, and you, and also you, have noticed that there's a bunch of paparazzi and police and all that down on Hudson and Canal. That means Jay-Z and Beyonce are getting married right now! Or at least that's the rumor. Maybe he's just giving some sort of charity concert, did anybody even think of that? Well if you're down there, go sneak in for us and send a full report. [NY Mag, pic from Joe the tipster]

While they're not the first (or thousandth) couple to marry after meeting online, Kristen Birkin and Steve Sweet sound like the most heartbreakingly redeemed. They met in Second Life, where both had dealt with their loveless marriages and dead-end lives by bravely escaping into a virtual world on the Internet. No, no, they also met in real life, moved in together, and plan to get married, which is actually pretty great! But then they talked to British gossip site Showbiz Spy and gave depressing comments like these:

"I'm a little shocked at the numbers," said sociologist Pamela Smock of the results of a recent survey of 1,134 median-income Americans, among whom "two-thirds of women and half of the men said they were 'very' or 'extremely' willing to marry for money." Mmm? "It's kind of against the notion of love and soul mates and the main motivations to marry in our culture." Oh, those are the main motivations to marry in our culture? We had gotten the impression that televised rose ceremonies, Jumbotron engagements, and fancy gift registries were the main motivations! But whatever, it is kind of sweet that someone is still surprised that most people would enter into contractual prostitution for less than the asking price of a one-bedroom luxury condo in Greenpoint. Money changes everything, Pamela!

At this point there's almost nothing that would shock us about former mayor Rudolph Giuliani. He ran a high-class escort service out of his office when he was a U.S. attorney? Well, at least he's industrious, etc. But his (third) wife still retains the capacity to surprise: yesterday, in the first of the '08 closet-cleaning skeleton revelations, the former Judith Nathan reveals that she is also the former Mrs. Judith Ross. We expect further spousal revelations to pop up before the primaries like Rose law firm records, so we'd like to get an early jump on them: If you or someone you know was married to one of the Giulianis, please drop us a note using the subject line "I also married Rudy or Judi." BONUS: If you are actually related to either spouse by blood, we will extend you a Gawker commenter invite.

Groom at right, not-bride at left. Both the Sun and Daily Mirror have eerily identical "exclusives" claiming that rocker, clothing designer, and invincible narcotics machine Pete Doherty wed his coke-friendly impregnated fianc Kate Moss on a beach in Phuket, Thailand. Supposedly this is just another playtime nonbinding "'bizarre' Buddhist" symbolic marriage thing, a la Anna Nicole Smith and her lawyer. Won't get fooled again, eh tabloids? So don't despair ladies — Doherty may still be technically on the market, if he's your type.

For the past few days, the top story on the NYT's most-emailed list (displaced only this afternoon by a litany of excuses for being messy) has been a boring list of questions to discuss with your intended before you tie the knot. They were so boring, that we despaired of ever getting married if we were forced to ask them of anyone (sample: "Will there be a television in the bedroom?"). But then a reader submitted his own list of questions for us to post, since the Times ones were, frankly, retarded. We felt they were much better suited to our needs, should we ever feel the desire to yoke ourselves to one other person for the rest of our living days. Our questions after the jump.

It's probably just the five-year-old in us, but we can't help finding "back story" and "push hard" in the context of the New Jersey gay marriage story incredibly hilarious. In any event, as part of its coverage of yesterday's Supreme Court decision, the Times has the inevitable "but would Gay American Jim McGreevey get married?" piece. The former governor says that he would, and offers some thoughtful discussion about what the ruling will mean for young people. He also apologizes for opposing same-sex marriage while he was in office, saying "I only wish I had had the fortitude to embrace this basic right when I was governor."

The New Jersey Supreme Court ruled today that the state Constitution entitles same-sex couples to all the legal benefits of marriage, but by another name. The high court adopted an approach similar to that taken by the Vermont Supreme Court in 1999, which ruled lawmakers can reserve the term "marriage" for the union of one man and one woman, but must grant all couples equal legal protections. Vermont lawmakers responded by allowing same-sex couples to form "civil unions."