The yuck factor | The Salt Lake Tribune

This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2013, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.

Last week's Supreme Court hearings on same-sex marriage caused Comedy Central's Jon Stewart to note that some people are uncomfortable with gay sex "purely on the basis of its putative yucky factor."

It was funny when Stewart said it, but the more I thought about it, I realized that on the issue of same-sex marriage, for some people, love, commitment, romance are not the issues. No, the unaddressed elephant in the room behind much opposition to same-sex marriage is how gays have sex.

As one experienced in gay sex, let me tell you, it can be very clean, and it is pleasurable and bonding. And that you consider it yucky, while your right, should have nothing to do with my right to marry whom I love, with marriage equality.

Get past the sex and look at the bond between two loving, committed individuals who want to be permanently together and create a stable, nurturing family.

Opposite-sex married couples who have vanilla sex don't deny marriage to more sexually adventurous straight couples, nor should they to same-sex couples. Let's keep the government out of the bedrooms — of both straight and gay couples.

Joel Jacobson

Salt Lake City