No, this headline did not come from me, or NOM, or any other advocate of natural marriage. The NYT, well-known social conservative mouth-piece, reported:
When Rio and Ray married in 2008, the Bay Area women omitted two words from their wedding vows: fidelity and monogamy….
As the trial phase of the constitutional battle to overturn the Proposition 8 ban on same-sex marriage concludes in federal court, gay nuptials are portrayed by opponents as an effort to rewrite the traditional rules of matrimony. Quietly, outside of the news media and courtroom spotlight, many gay couples are doing just that, according to groundbreaking new research.
And where did that “groundbreaking new research” originate? At that well-known right-wing, Christian university, San Francisco State:
New research at San Francisco State University reveals just how common open relationships are among gay men and lesbians in the Bay Area. The Gay Couples Study has followed 556 male couples for three years — about 50 percent of those surveyed have sex outside their relationships, with the knowledge and approval of their partners.
That consent is key. “With straight people, it’s called affairs or cheating,” said Colleen Hoff, the study’s principal investigator, “but with gay people it does not have such negative connotations.”…
None of this is news in the gay community, but few will speak publicly about it. Of the dozen people in open relationships contacted for this column, no one would agree to use his or her full name, citing privacy concerns. They also worried that discussing the subject could undermine the legal fight for same-sex marriage.
So, is it considered bad manners for me to bring this up? We actually refrained from bringing up stuff like this during the Prop 8 campaign, because we did kind of think it was bad manners. However, since the NYT brought it up, and since Joy Behar brought it up on The View, can we talk about it now?