Frontierville is home to 650,000 gay marriages, more than the rest of the world

It turns out there are more gay marriages in the virtual 1800s than there are in most countries in the world today. According to a new report there are 650,000 same-sex relationships on the popular Facebook game FrontierVille. You know, the one where you build log cabins, collect wagon wheels and click all sorts of buttons to tame the rugged wilderness, just like the pioneers did (without the cholera of course).

While FrontierVille is far from the first game to feature the option of marrying whomever you desire, it is by far the most mainstream.  According to Zynga CEO Marc Pincus (he's the guy in charge of all those games that create a giant time suck in your work day, i.e "FarmVille,""PetVille," "Mafia Wars" etc.), over 320 million people have played one of their games, and the company has seen more than "3 million peak concurrent users" (that's users playing games at the same time).  That means about four of your friends are probably growing virtual rutabegas while you read this. And they get to be "married" to whomever they want.  Even in an environment that features bear attacks and snake clobbering it's nice to know civil rights are allowed and being amply exercised. If only the real world was as fabulous as the Wild West.