2861U2 said:
I dont know about that. I would be proud to be whatever it is that I am, not ashamed. People attack Republicans and Christians pretty often, but I would never for a second pretend to be a Democrat or a non-Christian just to avoid persecution.
You certainly haven't been coming across as believing that gay people should be proud of what they are no matter what others say, and it's not like anyone else is suggesting that to be Christian or Republican is universally and intrinsically morally wrong for all human beings, everywhere, for all time and thus deserving of legalized discrimination. I really don't see how one's political views or religious beliefs are analogous--presumably you've arrived at those you hold now by thinking about them, reading about them, discussing them with other people and so on. I doubt very much that becoming attracted to women happened at all like that for you; orientation isn't an intellectual process. Of course it's physically
possible, as Irvine already mentioned, for people of any orientation to 'put themselves up to it' with someone of a gender they aren't in fact attracted to, but if there's no serious possibility of mutual physical and emotional enjoyment from it, what's the point really? Sure, heterosexual sex can also have the 'point' of making babies if you so choose...for one day every month of the woman's fertile years, which I doubt many straight couples out there attempt to limit themselves to.
Also, as others have already touched on, as a straight person, you won't ever have to worry about job discrimination or housing discrimination (both perfectly legal against gay people in 32 states) on that basis, or--if you do fall in love with a woman and wish to marry her--being ineligible for not only that status itself, but also the
more than a thousand federal rights conferred by it (freedom of marriage for gay people could have spared the family in the article MrsS posted earlier from the ordeal they went through). And then there's all the "intangibles" like knowing you can hold your partner's hand or put an arm around them in public (or refer to them in conversation) without risking harassment, social isolation or worse; not having to constantly hear denunciations from the "funny" to the downright vile about the type of human being you
just are, never 'planned' to be, and have no choice
but to be, sexually active or not; not having to fear rejection by your own family members and (former) good friends who suddenly decide you're unfit for their company when they learn the gender of the person you're in love with; etc., etc. ...knowing all the while that there are millions more out there who not only don't care if these things happen to you, but in fact believe you obviously deserve it, on account of the heinous thing you simply are.
No one's arguing that heterosexuality warrants limitation of rights by the state, despite the fact that millions of heterosexual individuals fail to live up to their own stated ideals ('lifestyle'?) for their relationships...staying faithful to your spouse, waiting until you're married to have sex, being good parents to their children, refraining from birth control or weird kinky sex techniques or whatever one's personal beliefs/religious texts call for...so why the double standard? We don't seem troubled by the fact that so many straight people can be counted on not to uphold whichever ideals the benefits of marital status are meant to honor and assist, so why not extend that same honor and assistance in good faith to gay people as we do to straight? We imagine that
their relationships couldn't possibly involve all the noble-but-occasionally-unpleasant-self-sacrifices ours do and are jealous, or what?