Been doing it all wrong gays. Should have come on bent knees with sad puppy dog eyes, asking nicely for people to stop decrying you as sub-humans, spitting in your faces, and routing you out of home, family and work if you dared so much as give off a whiff of your true identity.

Now if you'll excuse me, I need to go be a polite house gay and smile warmly as people openly tell me I deserve to go to hell and suffer for eternity, and that I should have my children taken from me due to the gender of their parents. Don't want to upset anyone and come off as divisive by demanding I be treated as an equal.

Don't shut up. Don't sit idly by while they slander you and lie. And don't let them strip you of your rights, which is their ultimate goal. People only respect you you when you fight back.

Being against gay marriage makes you a homophobe. Just like being against interracial marriage makes you a racist.

What's that? Don't like being called a bigot? Maybe try not being a bigot.

@1 Ex-fucking-actly. I have long since formed this view. I ABOSULTELY refuse to apologise for being gay and I give no leeway to bigots whatsoever.

Including my partner of 13 years' mother who refused to acknowledge or toast us on the announcement of our impending marriage. It was the last straw. I told the bitch to fuck off out of our lives. She can take her batshit religion and stick it.

Apparently they didn't even take the time to read Dr. Kings' Wikipedia entry:

"King also expresses his frustration with white moderates and clergymen too timid to oppose an unjust system:

'I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro's great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen's Counciler or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to "order" than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says: "I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action"; who paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for another man's freedom; who lives by a mythical concept of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait for a "more convenient season".'"

"Hate the sin, love the sinner" is a lie when used by the xtianists, and it is a non-starter when expected of us. People who DO evil and SAY evil ARE by definition evil.

I still remember when anyone who was out of the closet was labeled a militant homosexual, because it was so offensive to poor straights to have to admit that gay people existed or might want to be treated like human beings. As Dan notes, gay rights have come along very nicely thank you, and the combination of rabble-rousers on one end and nice polite gay neighbors/coworkers/relatives on the other made that happen.

tl;dr: Fuck em.

Dr. King was actually extremely cautious and advised others to be cautious, to the point of telling people "If another person is being molested, do not arise to go to his defense but pray for the oppressor and use moral and spiritual force to carry on the struggle for justice" after the buses were first integrated. But blacks in the South were in a lot more physical and legal danger than gays today—and we know how much danger gays are in today. More caution was warranted.

@9, if you think that praying advanced equal rights for non-whites and gays, then we have a problem.

Gay people are not a unified front. The pride parades capture some of the diversity: underwear clad go-go dancers, nuns in drag, politicians, naked subs, corporate employees, pflag moms. Even with the community there are disagreements about whether more sexual participants or the corporate contingents are out-of-place.

When I made phone calls or canvassed for R-74 we were given talking points and tips about how to approach undecided voters. The idea was to mold the message a little so it wasn't confrontational. That worked for a political campaign, but the idea that people should spend their entire lives as if they are in a political campaign and not just living their lives is ridiculous.