Daily Kos is one of my must-surf sites each day. Along with the main site posters, the average Kossacks there can put up some amazing, well-thought-out diaries. I’ve contributed a few myself, but it’s always good to give props to others that provide a good read. There are a couple you should check out. One is For straight people–a gay checklist, a great diary by maddrailin. Here’s a taste:

Marriage has a built in support structure that has been there through the ages.

Everyone, both gay and straight, are bombarded with the wonders of marriage day in and day out no matter who you are or where you live.

You have wedding announcements in the papers.

You have engagement parties.

Relatives come from all over the country, if not the world, to see your marriage take place and they celebrate, as they should.

…I mean jeeze – you can even get a congragulatory letter from the white house signed by the president when you are married.

To sum it up there is a real support structure built around marriage from your family to your local church and businesses to your town government, state government and finally the federal government.

In contrast – gays and lesbians have no such support structure unless they seek it out and build it themselves and even then it can be torturous.

You may lose family members and friends in the process.

Here in vermont – even after the civil union bill was passed there were town clerks who refused to give out these licenses. Can you understand how embarrasing a situation like that can be?

You have to seek out gay friendly places to have your civil union – and even when you do you still feel nervous and out of place.

If you are religious you have to locate a gay friendly church, unless you choose to hide who you are.

You don’t know how any one person might react to your being gay and your consideration of entering into a civil union. You might tell an associate and they could have any reaction – be excited – be angry – or even become violent…

And there is A Gay Apology, another tongue-in-cheek diary by MAJeff. Here is a snippet of Jeff’s rant:

I first wrote this back on February 10. For some reason, I can’t edit it, so I’m reprinting the diary here. Something tells me it could get ugly in here; oh, well.

I didn’t realize how prescient I was back then (especially since this was a couple days before San Francisco began its municipal civil disobedience)…well, at least I was able to foresee what one of the major narratives of the election results would be.

“We’re sorry that our donation of resources such as time, energy, money and skills to the Democratic Party had such an impact in detracting from the Democrats’ courageous stands against No Child Let Behind, the PATRIOT Act, the invasion of Iraq, Medicare reform, and Bush’s budget busting tax cuts. We should have realized this and stayed out of the Party.

We’re sorry for the timing of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Courts ruling. We should have done a better job of scheduling their calendar. Also, when the couples suing the Commonwealth, with the assistance of Gay and Lesbian Advocates and Defenders, filed their suit, we should have foreseen 9-11, the War on Terror, the invasion of Iraq and the extending jobless recovery.

We’re sorry our sexual orientation makes some of you uncomfortable. Your comfort should be our paramount concern. We really need to stop make silly demands about being included if it’s going to make other people uneasy…

Now, go read the rest. 🙂