So I'm sad about the gay marriage decision, from a cultural perspective

It's not

1977

any more.

OP, you in danger, girl!

Have no fear, OP, some things will forever set gay weddings apart.

No, it isn't R2. How I wish it was.

What makes you think marriage rights and sexual freedom are mutually exclusive? No, I'm not going to write about open relationships or cheating, because I really don't think that's what you're intent was, nor should it be. But you bring up creativity and style first, and the question is, what changed with gaining access to marriage rights nationwide? Did gays lose creativity and style when Massachusetts' SJC ruled back in 2003 (iirc) or was it when Prop 8 was struck down?

My point is, and what I've been saying to others and in particular straight people I know (mostly supportive, but a real asshole tried to tell me this week's ruling was the harbinger of end times, no exageration) is, what changed? I read a terrific essay that summed it up perfectly: the only thing that has changed is that the haters have been told that they can't hate, at least in an official capacity. They're free to go right on and tell us it's end times, that suddenly their marriages feel different, or that the thought of two men fucking is revolting to them. They just can't stand in the courthouse doors (or more accurately but less poetic, the County Recorder's office) and bar our entry any longer.

So, to you, OP, you'll still be able to experience the electricity of a gaggle of hot, young, muscular men gyrating to the beats of Summer, and all of the artists will still be able to create, and gays everywhere will still be able to get drunk and anonymously fuck in the backroom, just like last week/last year/whenever. This hard-fought victory, however, should be savored and enjoyed. This is a major victory and milestone in American history. We're full citizens when it comes to the rights and responsibilities of marriage. We can marry the one we love, and as Dolly Parton said, experience the misery just like everyone else.

Yes, OP, because one-offs between straight people never happen when alcohol or drugs are involved ever since straight marriage became accepted.

Very well put R5. And what it allows is for your loved one to have the same rights as that of a straight married couple, to your property should you pass away. They can now also make decisions about your life support, as they best know them---not some relative that might not have visited. It allows you access to the benefits that you pay into at work in certain jobs, such as time off when your spouse is very ill. I cringe when I hear people make the comment that gays and lesbians want "special rights." No. It is the same treatment that we have been paying for and watching others get for years. Although I am a Canadian and we have had these rights entrenched for a decade, I rejoiced for you the other day. It was a superb victory.

It's an overwhelmingly great thing but everything comes with a price. We may have been incredibly creative and innovative and at the forefront of most of the cultural developments of the last century but that was a byproduct of being on the outside. We fought for our rights and we achieved our goals and then the fight progressed towards more acceptance by straight conservative society and you only really achieve that by imitation. So now it is very genteel and very conservative: pro-marriage, pro-military, pro-government, etc. Any time a progressive attitude to sex is expressed on here, most react in disgust. That's a sign of the future. There was a thread on here yesterday where the OP was aghast that someone was making a political statement at Gay Pride. All of that is just a natural progression from imitation to conformity. But it's more than worth it if it means we don't have to suffer the horrific things that gay people in the past did, surely?

As a Jew, I am not saddened that we no longer have numbers tattooed on our arms.

I assume the OP is very young. Even during the height of post Stonewall Gay life, there were a huge amount of Brooks Brothers or Dockers wearing Gays that would rather vacation in Nantucket or the Smokey Mountains than Fire Island. Not everyone is creative, not everyone is fabulous, not everyone wants to be. This is just as true of Gays as anyone else.

People need to be free to be who they really are. Some people really are "Crate & Barrel". When two Crate & Barrels find each other, they shouldn't have to dress like glitter queens to be accepted. Nor should they impose their oatmeal and red, reclaimed barn-door World on everyone.

[quote]As a Jew, I am not saddened that we no longer have numbers tattooed on our arms.

Being gassed to death because of your ethnicity = not being allowed to marry your boyfriend.

Great analogy, there.

R9 Just wait, some jackass will make it trendy. Some modern attitudes are obnoxious.

What?

So don't register at Crate and Barrel, OP...

I won't be going to Fire Island. Not my thing. But Crate and Barrel might be. I don't know if it is, but I'd like the right to be able to register there like everybody else.

Oh, don't go there R12. Not this weekend, okay? You too, R13.

Doesn't sound like op is young, or I would've given him the same excuse. He seemed to indicate he was around and "fighting" in 1977.

R14 Laura Ashley has some nice prints.

R15 What did I say?

OP gays like you really anger me. It is not about becoming like the straights, it's about having the chance to develop and create families, and strong partnerships.They don't even have to be monogamous, but why pretend that most human beings of any orientation have the desire to be in loving partnerships? It's basic. Some of you just want us all to go back to the days of cottaging, and cruising in parks,( yes I know this still happens) we do not all want that lifestyle, so it's good to have choice right? Believe me I'm as sexual as the next guy BUT there comes a time when you NEED the love of a significant other. I hope one day to find one. Endless hookups may be fun but they can for some, become soulless. Maybe the real reason is that YOU are scared that now you may be pressured to partner up yourself and it worries you? It shouldn't!

I get the outsider argument, R8. But that presupposes that art is only better outside of convention, which I think the majority of artists and other creative types would disagree. Isn't the history of art creating something new that influences culture, ultimately bringing it along for the ride? Isn't this the same cycle we've seen since man started recording history? Somehow, I think artists will still find their inner torment even when their sexual identity is considered just another variation on the spectrum.

OP, you are operating under the mistaken assumption ALL gay men will now marry.

R20 It's true. Artists can always find the moody melodrama and conflict in even the best of circumstances.

OP - you act like gays invented the sexual freedom of the 60's and 70's. They didn't - it just became legal for them to do so and they too the new freedoms to absurd heights. And paid for it too with AIDS.

Stop thinking that fucking every man you see is the height of freedom. It isn't. It's sad and pathetic after a while.

I am guessing OP is Lesbeau, who is why we can't have nice things personified.

R21 What's your excuse now, Bill?!

5/4 doesn't fill me with confidence.

We have a lot of work to do to prove to the breeders that we "deserve" this honor. I know... but we do.

Be nice to your neighbors and co-workers. Don't gloat. We may need their help at the polls someday.

R15/Touchy, R9's Reductio ad absurdum argument was just that. Devolving the dIscussion into a back-and-forth comparison between the Holocaust and marriage equality diminishes the joy we should all be feeling today.

Gays were gassed to death in the concentration camps too.

[quote] We have a lot of work to do to prove to the breeders that we "deserve" this honor.

It is a right, not an "honor." Did you not read the opinion?

Don't get me wrong, R26. We have huge battles to fight ahead of us. There are counties in Tennessee and Louisiana that are refusing to issue marriage licenses, and you can see the coming backlash brewing. Folks like Frothy Mix, Huckabee and Fischer are out there drawing battle lines already. Poontang Jindal is trying to gain presidential cred using Obergefeld as a sword. We can still be fired, evicted, and worse. And today's New York Times predictably writes that our attentions have already turned. We're being painted as endlessly demanding in an effort to discredit our movement. We need to flip that argument on its head, and we can by pointing out that the Constitution, specifically the First Amendment, didn't end religious persecution, and that has been and is an ongoing fight. Again, we're the same as everyone else. All we want is the same freedoms and rights as everyone else. And we're going to keep fighting for as long as it takes, just like everyone else.

indeed.

[R.28] From what i have read they were considered lower than the jews. Even Jews in the camps would shun and attack known homosexuals. How depressing is that?

OP if people were only free back then because the law made us outlaws and didn't allows us equal rights, sexual freedom wasn't freedom by true choice.

If you feel that marriage equality will make people more reluctant to be free, they - and you - were never free to begin with.

At least now you can choose to say no to marriage. Without marriage equality, all those queer rants about rejecting marriage as a hetero-normative bourgeois construct were just based on self delusion. You cannot reject what is not your entitlement in the first place. Finally we are empowered to say whether or not marriage is for us. It was for me.

I look at it like this, marriage meant nothing to me before. It still doesn't now.

If you think hat ring on your finger is going to make me think twice before fucking your husband, you would be sadly mistaken. It's a piece of paper that has zero to do with me and I think your marriage (whether m/w or m/m or w/w) is silly.

that, not hat

It's okay, more of a business decision than anything else in terms of marriage rights and I am for that. But, Jesus, some of the comments I am having to read from gay friends on Facebook and the like: "After a lifetime of feeling invisible...", "Now we are whole people...", "Our love is now validated.." Really? Some of you needed the approval of a government regarding a rather archaic institution to feel good about yourselves? I can't relate to this at all, not even when I try to stretch it.

I for one loved doing just what I wanted to do all these years and I never for one second feared my love wasn't "valid" because I've had those feelings since I was 11. But then I'm also one that loved that I was spared most of the mundane aspects of life, many which I'd already ruled out from childhood -- bullshit weddings for marriages that end in two years, country clubs, church groups, all of that. But if that's what others want, go for it.

In the meantime, I will stay off of Facebook for a while until the wistful Marys get busy with scrapbooking or whatever. Dear God...

It is interesting that now that marriage has become nearly obsolete among straight folks we get marriage rights.

What R14 said.

No one is going to force you to shop at Crate and Barrel, live in the burbs, and spawn. It's about having choices.

Why are you making it a problem, Mary?

r37. you sound very single. are you?

LOL, R40 pretty much sums up what is going on out there. Come on, I just HAVE to know. Male or female? Straight or gay?

I love already getting dictates from straight people about how I should be feeling about all of this. It's a cousin to the old cliche "I just want you to be happy (like meeeeeeee, meaning on my mundane terms)."

Not single but not co-habitating either, we both got our own lives going on. And definitely not getting married anytime soon to anybody, Jesus. Are we going to start getting that shit like all of my single female friends? Please, people, don't.

I'm with you, OP.

It's a fantastic thing, but I too always cringe when I hear gay people say, "I'm just looking to be accepted!"....Gross. I am NOT looking to be "accepted" by ANYONE, because I already accept myself. Join me, or don't, I honestly don't give a fuck!

From a cultural perspective, I don't see the SCOTUS ruling having a negative impact, as R5 so eloquently argued. What's being taken away? To echo R41, it's a huge victory for all of us, but not every gay and lesbian couple is heading for the altar. My partner and I live in CA where gay marriage has been legal for awhile, and we've been asked on a number of occasions when we're planning to get hitched. I'm sure we'll get a fresh round of inquiries. It shows that people care and are open-minded, which we appreciate. But just like we wouldn't dream of asking straight couples when they're going to get married, we'd like to be shown the same courtesy.

I think you do care R42.

You're here. You're queer. We're used to you. You're boring.

OP: Gay marriage is not about imitating straights or giving up our unique culture. It's about getting economic and legal benefits and safeguards that the rest of the population take for granted. If they, then we.

That's all it is. Oh--and hearing the sound of heads exploding. Santorum's. Huckabee's. Cruz's. Scalia's. They're hateful scum, and the more we succeed in getting our rights, the more they will rave and scream and look--to the rest of the world--like the filth they are.

If you knew me, r44, you'd know I don't.

I'm not striving to be thought of as some boorish asshole, I just don't spend any valuable energy acting as if I need people to "accept me" for being gay. It's not anything I value or need, as I have my own set of values by which I live my life, that's all.

"We're here! We're not 'queer'! We're people who just happen to be attracted to members of the same sex!"

OP sounds old. Not all gay men are creative or whores. From a cultural perspective all this means is that gay couples won't be screwed over by the courts or hospitals when their spouse is in trouble or dies.

OP R35 and R37 sound like the oldest and most tired people on here. I'm surprised you figured out how to post.

To me the whole thing is about having choices and not being second class citizens. You almost sound every bit as holier then thou as the frothy mix. Get over yourselves, we are everywhere and are every type, not a stereotype.

Before, The Brave Gays led the Movement as we marched towards Liberation! Now, the Good Gays (who were cowering back when the Brave Gays were in charge) have taken over the Movement and are dragging us all towards assimilation.

The Good Gays motto: "We're Practically Normal!"

R50 and the like - You bitch about stereotypes and then shriek out one of the worst ones about gay men: accusing gays of being old!

Fucking get over it. The elder gays have been around longer so they CAN see what is gained and what is lost.

Nice R51 guess we're all supposed to conform to the Huckabee stereotype

OP= Joe Simpson

R50 is correct. Eldergays ruin everything.

r55 thinks they invented everything they take for granted.

No, Dear, nothing that happened before you were born, or arrived on the scene means anything. Yawn. Go back to your "Drag Race" and Truvada lifestyle.

Being single, I've never considered the SCOTUS gay cases as about marriage. But about self-esteem, equality.

As long as gay couples couldn't marry, they were considered illegitimate, "silly", abnormal.

Now it's not GAY marriage or domestic partner or civil union- it's just marriage. Husbands, wives, children.

Normal. And we have to guard it with our lives.

No r53 -- we are not all Identity politics playing professional victims who want the love of WASPs. Some of don't give a damn what Huckabee thinks or doesn't think.

Get ready, folks, now it starts, a whole new strain of Domestic Gay Thought Police. aka Married with a Vengeance. And if you have a different perspective, you are old, tired, single, whatever the fuck. Oh and R42 really cares desperately what the mainstream thinks of him -- because R44 says so.

Please don't let this place become the gay version of iVillage. It's already getting fucking weird -- here and out there.

The notion that marriage was the needed battle has always been a joke. Employment and housing protections are far more fundamental and would serve ALL gays.

This is just another example of the straight white wing of the liberal left conning their supposed allies into believing they know what's best for them. The Uncle Tom gays bought it thinking the straights wouldn't hate us so much if only we fight to show we are just like them.

In reality, straight whites don't give a damn about what's best for the gay community (or people of color for that matter). They care about what will damage their opponents the most.

That's why marriage was foisted as the top priority: to damage republicans, NOT to best serve the civil rights of gay Americans. The same thing is happening with straight whites of the millennial age who push the T to the forefront...

Just one man's take.

Employment and housing protections I hope comes next. Especially employment protections.

Well, the trans have already shut that down, R61.

[quote][R55] thinks they invented everything they take for granted.

[quote]No, Dear, nothing that happened before you were born, or arrived on the scene means anything. Yawn. Go back to your "Drag Race" and [an important drug google will not allow us to mention] lifestyle.

Not sure where you got any of that from, grandpa.

I propose a group F&F for R55/R63. Little ageist fucker getting on my last nerve.

Are you kidding? Nothing's going to change. Married gay couples will go to glory holes and to the bathhouse together. Isn't it romantic?

The OP is talking about more than just the old days of sexual freedom. It's not even about gay artists (imo) as much as it is about gays appreciating and supporting the arts.

Where gay couples used to be stalwart supporters of the Theater, the Opera, the Ballet, the Symphony, Museums, galleries, etc. Now they are changing nappies, losing sleep over their kids and living in the suburbs with the fraus.

If that's what they truly want, more power to them. I hope that some of them don't wake up ten years from now and wish they had kept that co-op in Manhattan and the single, culturally rich life they used to have.

It has never been my true nature to want to flaunt my "sexual freedom" by fucking a bunch of random (but oooooh CREATIVE!) strangers on Fire Island. I just want to settle down with a soul mate and build a life together with someone I love and trust.

Sounds good to me R67. I was never the type who felt the need to fuck as many strangers as possible to prove what a good non-conforming gay I was in the eyes of those like the OP.

R67 & R68 = Huckabee & Santorum

Speaking of Huckabee...

[quote]OP, wondering what I fought for

The freedom to choose?

R69 Raging bath house whore who thinks his various STDs make him "edgy".

This is the most ironic piece of reality I have ever witnessed in the real world...

So many delight in bashing freepers, fundies, and wing nuts as stupid morons who mouth breathe Faux News. Yet, the marriage morons have been outfoxed by the fundies.

They actually believe the strategic rhetoric of the far right politicians. They can't see how Huckabee with his 'Jesus wept' and Santorum with his 'every child has a birthright to a mommy and a daddy' played them as fools.

Those were classic negotiation tactics by the fundies. They pretended to be all in on a basic level: marriage. They made the misguided marriage misanthropes believe this was THE fight. That way, gay America used up as much political capital as possible to do what???

To fight tooth and nail to do the most fundie thing of all: commit to a box of heteronormative monogamous coupling!

The fundies are partying even harder than the gay fraus behind the scene...

They have corralled the gay rights movement into the belief that marriage is stabilizing and the ultimate human expression. They have forced the gay movement to use massive amounts of political capital on becoming more like fundies (and actually celebrating it).

Congrats to all you queens who can't wait to be just like boring ass suburbia (with their 50%+ divorce rate). I sure hope you can:

1. Find mr. Right

2. Find the white picket fence seller who doesn't mind 'your type' taking over (no protection there)

3. Keep your revenue stream to pay for said dream life (no protection there either)

Don't pay attention to the fact that both gay and straight allies are already saying things like:

'We are now free'

'What's left to fight for?'

'It's time to move onto trans issues!'

I'm sure your hetero wannabe fantasy will work out just fine (who cares if marriage is an antiquated model that even many hetero types are rejecting?)

R64 is R59, who wrote this total and complete bullshit:

[quote]Get ready, folks, now it starts, a whole new strain of Domestic Gay Thought Police. aka Married with a Vengeance. And if you have a different perspective, you are old, tired, single, whatever the fuck. Oh and [R42] really cares desperately what the mainstream thinks of him -- because [R44] says so.

[quote]Please don't let this place become the gay version of iVillage. It's already getting fucking weird -- here and out there.

A sad, pathetic, elderly asshole who wants to play the victim because he's so miserable, no one would ever consider marrying him.

If the OP would take a moment to consider the difference between the right to marry and the obligation to marry, he would realize that the supreme court decision is something to be unreservedly happy about.

The right to marry is a legal wrong made right, the obligation to marry is something we ought to be trying to free the straights from.

R72 thinks his mrs cleaver apron & peg bundy heels makes him less creepy to the fraus

R76 is almost as sad as R64.

[quote]It's not 1977 any more.

Tell me about it. I just turned 50.

r73 you are unhinged.

Annnnnnnd this is how you kill a thread. When it becomes clear it is no longer a discussion. Fuck you guys.

I get what you're saying OP.

Before too long, we will no longer know why they caged bird sings. And that is sad, in a way.

There's always public parks for you to celebrate your particular brand of gay life in op.

The New Gay Order is a Xewish construct -- notice how much ground we loss before getting "rights" that benefit only the NGO

zzzzzzzzzzz

Marriage equality will make it easier to stand out as a creative or eccentric, if that's your interest. Currently, my being gay and unmarried is attributed to my being gay. Now it will be attributed to my lack of interest in marriage and having children. I think there's a greater divide and have been for years between parents and nonparents than between gays and straights, and this recent decision, which is not "special rights' but rather the end of special restrictions, is something I am elated about. I think of the old gays I know and how they reacted to the news. It was touching.

Gay has lost its caché.

R86/2015 bump troll is nuts