Don't like gay marriage? Then don't marry a gay person

That's my brief and blunt reaction to the Supreme Court not hearing appellate level challenges about gay marriage in several different states.

Having a number of gay and lesbian friends, several of whom have had long-term partnerships, some of whom have wanted the legal, financial and social protections and assurances of marriage, I am glad to see this.

You know, like your partner being able to see you in the hospital. Or, when your partner dies, his or her homophobic parents being unable to break up a will. Or the right to adopt. Etc., etc.

That said, what if being gay or lesbian isn't 100 percent genetic? Or even 100 percent genetic + an uncontrollable part of "nurture," the womb environment?

What if, on average, it's 10 percent choice?

No matter.

Atheism is 100 percent choice, arguably, yet deserves the full protection of the First Amendment's "freedom of religion" clause as properly understood.

That said, there's another reason I raise the issue of "choice" on gay marriage.

What about certain elements of gay male culture that, stereotypically, at least, have an aversion to long-term partnerships? Bathhouse culture, to use a name?

Well, nobody's forcing them, or randier straight males, to get married. And gay marriage is likely to leave unchanged their non-interest in marriage.

And, let's hope it leaves unchanged our non-interest in their non-interest in gay marriage either.

The great majority of gay males aren't card-carrying members of Queer Nation, anyway. (And, that's despite PR efforts by both Queer Nation and fundamentalist Christians.)

That said, per discussion about the issue, SCOTUS' move still doesn't address the "full faith and credit" clause of the Constitution. If it's sending a signal to red states to stop the nonsense, I still would have preferred an explicit ruling sooner rather than later. Get married in California but move to Kansas? SCOTUS says "sorry, but not yet." Or, if you just live in Kansas, it's definitely "not yet." Residents of 20 states are still out in the cold.

Because, in hardcore red states like Texas, hardcore red-state politicos like Greg Abbott will keep trying to deny the rights of people they don't like. After all, he is our state's money-waster in chief. And, in a place like the south, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals WILL give SCOTUS the thumbs-down ruling that it's going to have to face anyway.

I'm also interested in who switched sides since the Court's Prop 8 and DOMA ruling. That was 5-4, after all, and it only takes 4 votes, not 5, to grant cert.