I haven't made any statement to the press about my sexuality. Nor should gay people.
Many married people, the vast majority of whom are opposite-sex couples, typically invite people to their wedding and make a celebration out of their heterosexual relationship. I don't see why there's anything wrong with celebrating people's relationships or the affections they have for others. We even love hearing about other people's love and commitments in movies. Heterosexuals tend not to disclose it by saying things like "I am heterosexual" because they don't need to come out since 1) they make up the majority of the population (only 3-5% of the population is gay), and 2) they are not marginalized to keep it a secret lest they lose family, friends, employment, respect, protections, safety, etc. It is simply the assumed position -- and that's fine, but let us not pretend as though heterosexuals do not make any declarations of their sexual orientation, whether overtly or indirectly. We don't tell parents who tell us about their kids to "keep their sexuality in the bedroom" because revealing you have kids typically is an indication that you had sex for at least as many times as the number of children one has (except for the tiny minority who have them unnaturally
in vitro).
It's also important to address two other points. One is this notion that gay people need to "keep it in the bedroom." But keep what in the bedroom, exactly? No one is telling you about their sexual escapades in lurid detail, except for crass people who, just by sheer number, tend to overwhelmingly be heterosexuals -- just listen to much of contemporary pop music. You're getting to fixated on the term "sexual" in "sexual orientation" but you are committing a fallacy known as Equivocation. When I say "my wallet is light" I don't use the term "light" to refer to "luminosity" but rather "weight." Likewise, the word "sex" in "sexual orientation" does not refer to intercourse but to the dichotomy of the sexes, like when we say "the battle of the sexes" -- we're not refering to a battle among genitalia but rather of males versus females. The prefix hetero- and homo- mean "different" and "same," respectively. Hetero- and homo- what? Hetero- and homo-
intercourse? No, that makes no sense. It means hetero- and homo-sexual -- as in pertaining to a person's attraction to either a different or same sex. It's very telling how when we think about heterosexuals we think about the constellations of experiences they have: romance, intimacy, family, love, etc. When we think about gay people, we focus on the sex part (as in
intercourse). Heterosexual people have lives, but homosexual people have "lifestyles." Heterosexuals have a moral vision, homosexuals have an "agenda." This loaded terminology biases the conversation and our way of thinking about these things from the get-go.
Finally, it's important for people to not only come out but to make it known. How else do you think people have changed their attitudes on the topic and have come around to tolerating and even accepting gay people in a span of just a few years? By staying quiet lest gays "annoy" straight people? Of course not. People respond empathetically and compassionately when you put a human face to an issue. And it also works by providing solidarity and support for those still in hiding, especially kids. Thanks to celebrities as well as average folk uploading videos to the It Gets Better project, for instance, many kids have written letters and uploaded videos giving thanks for providing them the support they needed to rethink suicide, having initially contemplated it because they couldn't initially conceive of a life was worth living as a result of all the hostility and negativity around them. I can't possibly see how people can express repeatedly being "bothered" by another article on an athlete coming out over they've stumbled across but remain virtually silent on the tragedy and hardship of, say, teens kicked out of their home after being honest and open in coming out.
But like I said earlier:
Let's not derail this thread with a discussion about whether you feel homosexuality is immoral.
This is a thread about a judge's response to a specific argument advanced by the defendants: that of procreation and its purported relevance to banning same-sex marriage.
I'd love for people to evaluate that argument and give their thoughts.
