Ah, the 'cramming down the throat' metaphor. Used to hear it a lot from people who didn't want 'the Bible' crammed down their throat. Didn't like it then either.

Slogans are not thinking.

It's evident from what we see pop culturally, not to mention academia. The whole "Gay Wedding Day" event in which I was involved was some years before the gay marriage issue came to a head, and I think it was just a little, bitty piece of the whole propaganda campaign aimed in that direction. Yes, I allowed myself to be talked into it. What was funny, I guess you might say, was that prior to Gay Wedding Day I was a perfectly straight guy. Then the wedding day came (during which I was a total nervous wreck). Here's the thing, after the wedding my groom and I dated for almost a year. We were actually talking about going to Massachusetts to be legally wed. I was all set to do so when he broke up with me. Since then, I've been back to dating only women. Ironically, while I'm very pro-traditional marriage, had we gone to Massachusetts and been wed, to this very day I'd still be wed to him and be living a gay lifestyle, just because of the commitment I'd have made.

I'm aware that there are "lifestyles" for most folks, some look like a stereotype. For most of us tho, it's just living life and dealing with what comes without an agenda. I do know folks with agendas, some of whom display Confederate and/ or NRA or other symbology. My older brother is a Progressive activist, my younger a quiet Mormon conservative by marination.
I myself try to promote fact based information without an agenda, tho' Progressively sympathetic.

Stereotype? Yeah, plenty of that going around, including in the gay community. For Todd and I, our relationship was more romantic than anything else. When we were considering going to Massachusetts, we were seeing a counselor on a pre-marriage basis. She was like, "Your relationship started with a wedding? A full-blown wedding?" She said that was likely to be credited for our relationship being so romantic and affectionate and not so "lustful." I was totally ready to go to Massachusetts and have a real wedding. Here I was the "straight" guy, and Todd broke it off! And Gay Wedding Day had been almost an impromptu "coming out," with my mother and sister and several aunts, cousins, and friends there. Kind of hard to undo that!

And you come out of all that thinking gay marriage is bad, because it promotes commitment? Or what? Still don't get it.

Well, I had commitment. I'd come out in a rather public way that took some people by surprise, including myself. Commitment isn't always requited.

True, that. In that, I am indeed fortunate.

BT you sound like a gay person who is in denial, you do realize that it is not a choice, we are either wired one way or the other. Sometimes it even gets so that a baby is identified as one gender but that the soul inside knows that it really belongs to the opposite gender.

I give little to no thought to same sex marriages. See no big deal to marriage between two or more consenting adults. What consenting adults do in private is of no concern to me.

The term marriage tho historically a religious one has now morphed to encompass legal unions. The marriage physically effects only those on the license, all other only have their feelings hurt by the act. I say BFDeal! Get over it, this is the USA!




Barney

Denial?
 

Denial? I don't think that was the case at all. I walked down the aisle with my groom and was wed in a very formal, traditional wedding - in front of family and friends - and came out fully intent on living a gay life wed to my groom. I think I was embracing it.