If An Opponent of Same-Sex Marriage Said This, It Would Be Bigotry

From the June 30, 2011 New York Times Magazine:

Although best known for his It Gets Better project, an archive of hopeful videos aimed at troubled gay youth, Savage has for 20 years been saying monogamy is harder than we admit and articulating a sexual ethic that he thinks honors the reality, rather than the romantic ideal, of marriage. In Savage Love, his weekly column, he inveighs against the American obsession with strict fidelity. In its place he proposes a sensibility that we might call American Gay Male, after that community’s tolerance for pornography, fetishes and a variety of partnered arrangements, from strict monogamy to wide openness.

...

“I acknowledge the advantages of monogamy,” Savage told me, “when it comes to sexual safety, infections, emotional safety, paternity assurances. But people in monogamous relationships have to be willing to meet me a quarter of the way and acknowledge the drawbacks of monogamy around boredom, despair, lack of variety, sexual death and being taken for granted.”

 Just like straight people, except for who they love?  Yeah, I know that there are straight people with "open marriages," but not too many straight people regard that as anything but the start of a disaster.  I bought a house in California from someone who, I later found out, was heavily engaged in the swinging scene with his wife.  And one day, his wife decided that after all the variety of their sexual lives...she preferred women to her husband, and left.  And this couple did not seem to be alone.

I know that there are gay couples who are monogamous and committed, and there are plenty of straight couples out there who utterly fail at this.  But at least they aren't demanding a complete rewrite of the laws around the claim that "we're just like straight people" while insisting that monogamy is impractical.

I found the link over at Ann Althouse's blog.  Some of the comments from otherwise pretty liberal sorts are quite interesting.