Single Gays Now Subject To Same Annoying Marriage Pressure as Straights

Yesterday was the first day that same-sex couples could legally marry in the state of New York. Hooray for human rights!

As with every blessing, though, this new world of choices for gay couples in relationships also opens couples to pressures that they didn’t face before- the pressure to get hitched.

The New York Times reports that nosy parents from coast to coast are now expecting their New York-bound gay kids to eventually get serious, just like the straights.

“I’ve been tracking it on our site’s chat boards,” said Carley Roney, editor in chief of the wedding site the Knot, which has had a gay wedding section since 1998. “Now that more states are legalizing gay marriage, parents are saying, ‘Oh, good, so you told me this was serious and I’ve been supporting you, but now you can make it official.’ “

In a sense, it’s no different from what drives overbearing parents everywhere.

People with more traditional ideas about marriage- that it makes a relationship “official” or somehow more sanctified than a non-marriage relationship. One parent interviewed for the NYT story remarked,

“I’m a Bible-thumping Lutheran who just got my church to put rainbow stickers on their door,” said Ms. Robinson, who is divorced and uses her maiden name. “If they were married, I would feel more like I could write Lindsay’s name in the family Bible in ink.”

Some parents are even going so far as to plan their child’s wedding before they’re engaged. The aforementioned Ms. Robinson already has a vision for what dresses her daughter and her daughter’s partner should wear, the string quartet that will play, the centerpieces.

While the parent-wants-to-run-things narrative can get old quickly, there’s also potential for comedy here. I can only hope that this means that Steve Martin is making another sequel to

Father of the Bride

called

Father of the Grooms

.

Ready to Wed? No, Mom. [NYT]