Writing about gay marriage as a straight person means:

1) People assuming I’m gay (not that there’s anything wrong with that…)

2) Right-wing nutcases calling me a whiny faggot for supporting gay marriage

3) Left-wing gays calling me a sell-out house-faggot for supporting a deliberative, democratic and federalist approach to attaining marriage equality

Nos. 1 & 2 don’t bother me tremendously. But No. 3 makes me feel a bit awkward. Essentially, I’m the white person counseling blacks patience during the civil rights movement. Now, I don’t buy a one-for-one equation of gay marriage with the civil rights movement, just to be clear. It does, however, feel odd to tell couples with no legal protection under the law to just sit tight.

Yet I, and no small number of libertarian types such as myself (some gay, some straight), think patience is nonetheless the proper and prudent course here. Acceptance of homosexuality has made tremendous strides in all of our lifetimes. And America is moving — fitfully, slowly, erratically — toward some hodgepodge of marriage, civil unions and domestic partnership rights.

Forcing this to a cataclysmic, all-out fight at the national level can only have one of two outcomes: 1) a Supreme Court decision forcing states to recognize gay marriages, or 2) a constitutional amendment defining marriage as between one man and one woman (and perhaps even closing off the possibility of civil unions, depending on the wording and how it’s interpreted).

So, yes, patience is prudent. A court victory in Massachusetts or New York is satisfying to some gay-marriage supporters in the short term, but it means huge setbacks for gays in other states.

And it could even mean writing anti-gay discrimination into the Constitution.