Do you want to get married, or run away?

In the March 21 edition of the "YNEWS" here at BYU, Joseph Hadfield reports, "New research shows that happily married adults have lower blood pressure than singles with supportive social networks." This new study shows not only that being happily married is better for your health than being happily single, but "that unhappily married adults have higher blood pressure than both happily married and single adults." This demonstrates that just being married isn't good enough, nor is just having a good supportive social network. There is something uniquely beneficial about being happily married. It's interesting that this is the kind of study that makes the cover story of YNEWS. Clearly BYU values marriage and wants to find and support things that glorify marriage. It's all we talk about in Elder's quorum and hometeaching visits. Marriage is everywhere. I'm not opposed to that. I grew up in this Mormon-American culture which believes that marriage is the best route to take. So here's the problem. For me, being happily married means marrying a man.

I don't understand why all of a sudden the research is reversed for me because I am gay. I am constantly bombarded with this message, "Marriage is better for man than being single, unless you are gay, and then it is better to be celibate." I don't know how much of this message is created by my own projections, but still, it is getting old. I'm tired of it. Either get off the "MARRIAGE! MARRIAGE! MARRIAGE!" soapbox, or let me marry the person that I want to marry. I feel like they are rubbing salt into my wounds.