about the NY Times young gay married folk article from 4/29/08.

I've talked with a few gay and gay-friendly friends in the last week about the article, and most were really positive about the piece. None of the people I spoke with, gay or straight, have been married.

(I was married to a lovely women for 10 years until we decided to end our marriage about a year ago. My bisexulaity was known, discussed, and accepted while we dated and were married; it was a factor in our decision to divorce, but it was not the sole or even top reason for the decision. But I digress...)

So as someone who's been married, one of the big things that frustrated me about the story (aside from the small sample set of 5 or 6 couples, lack of statstical research, and the absence of anyone non-white or non-upper-middle class in the mix) was that the piece totally ignored the realities of actually being married. 

It's hard work waking up every day and committing to make a life with someone else. Marriage is a marathon of transcendence; a wedding is just an expensive party. The piece focused on the party a lot, the marathon not so much.

And in the process of focusing on the party/the wedding, the piece makes the five couples seem pretty shallow, naive, and materialistic. We get it, "the gays" throw great parties, but come on, what makes a gay wedding -- and more importantly a gay marriage -- different than and similar to a hetero marriage.  

As it stood, the young gay grooms seemed just as vapid as the grinning, pretty brides in the dozens of straight wedding-themed publications on the market.

I guess it's some sort of progress that gays are finally getting their own version of mindless wedding porn from the magazine industry? Kinda cynical, I know, but that was the biggest takeaway for me.