The gay lifestyle: Are you missing out?

Dave Muskera, M.A.

November 20, 2007

If I read or hear the words “the gay lifestyle” one more time, I’m going to chew nails, or yell like a summa wrestler whose butt’s been kicked. I’m fed up with this phrase and the people who use it. They pretend it has some real, substantial meaning. It doesn’t! Let’s get this straight (and no comments from anyone abut the use of that word) - it’s usually not a phrase used by actual red-blooded gay folks to describe how they live or who they are. Just as straight people never refer to themselves as living the “straight lifestyle”, most gay people I know or have read about don’t see themselves as leading any particular lifestyle based on who they love or sleep with. It’s really a meaningless, worse yet, a misleading term. But somehow, the fundamentalist far-right religious camp has actually managed for years to successfully use this phrase in very negative ways to bash homosexuals.

So, what does the “gay lifestyle” really refer to and why is its use of such continuing importance to anti-gay groups?  See  The gay lifestyle: Are you missing out?
American Chronicle