The linked story is from Towleroad and is titled “Rose Parade Gay Marriage Draws Ire of Some in LGBT Community.” Draws critique? I hope so.Criticism is well deserved indeed!

Yesterday, we reported on Danny Leclair, 45, and Aubrey Loots, 42, a gay Los Angeles couple of 12 years who married atop a float in Pasadena’s Tournament of Roses Parade sponsored by the AIDS Healthcare Foundation.

The marriage, which was intended to mark the first New Year’s Day that same-sex marriage is legal in California and the role that marriage can play in helping to reduce new HIV infections among gay men, apparently drew objections from both sides of the aisle. In an interview with LA Weekly, Leclair admitted that they had been criticized by both anti-gay conservatives and members of the LGBT community.

Now, I’ve got nothing against marriage. And this isn’t about these two specific guys. My partner and I will be getting married in the next eight weeks or so, but to suggest marriage as a strategy to help reduce new HIV infections? Whomever thought of that has not a clue about why HIV infections are rising. And if anything, this mindset is a part of the problem not part of the solution.

That crap Phil Robertson had to say about the Gays? It was harmless compared to this pile of manure.

Now, I’m an old gay guy. I was sexually active before there were any guys dying of a disease which would later be called AIDS, and I’ve navigated the epidemic as best I can and have remained negative. Remaining negative isn’t rocket science, and the reasons people practice unsafe sex aren’t that hard to sort out. True, creating behavioral change isn’t easy, so I don’t mean to suggest it is. But, in my opinion we have never seen the type of decrease we, as a community need, because we have failed to celebrate good, self-responsible sex, and have shut our eyes to any reduction strategy except, “know your status and use condoms.” Yes, these are important, but they aren’t the whole story.I wrote about this for World AIDS Day this past December.

What’s the thinking behind this new strategy? Promote this fallacious idea that every guy is supposed to find and marry a partner…  by 19 or so? Then live happily ever after in monogamous bliss? Without a doubt being monogamous has a potential to decrease spread. That’s simple to understand. But this is using the institution of marriage in the same rigid and controlling way that male dominated heterosexual privilege has been doing for ever.

Even as it may have an impact, the reality is that it won’t play any role in most guys life until his mid-to-late twenties at the earliest. What is going to assist these guys in the years before they get married? Or if they get divorced? The notion of marriage as cultural and sexual control has never succeeded for straights, so why would anyone expect t it to be different for gay guys?

Let’s be honest- this idea is just a new way to hide the fact that some are treating gay male sex as bad and evil. Same-sex marriage is gender neutral but this HIV prevention scam i wall about hating gay male sex or pretending that it is acceptable, only if it fits into an archaic heterosexual model that doesn’t work.

via Rose Parade Gay Marriage Draws Ire of Some in LGBT Community| Gay News | Towleroad.