Firstly, and most importantly, Mr Visible, I’m so sorry that your nephew is suffering like this. Being a teenager isn’t easy at the best of times, and no-one should have to suffer such needless persecution. I’m glad his family are obviously so supportive, but very very sad that he’s going through this.
To Debaser, if you’re still reading, and anyone else who’s been silently agreeing, many people have put forward what seemed to me to be perfectly logical arguments, without any apparent success, so I’m going to ask you to think about it like this:
You’re about to get married. I don’t know you or the future Mrs Debaser, so I have no idea why you’re getting married, but I’ll assume it’s not solely for the noble motive of procreation and the continuation of the human race.
It might be for the sake of those tax and other legal benefits you mentioned (and they aren’t just financial either - the right to be treated as next of kin if your beloved is in hospital and unable to make decisions for him or herself). I won’t follow this line of thought any further, because others have already made the point that if these benefits are going to exist, they should be available to all.
On the other hand, it might be because you are very much in love with Mrs Debaser. You are intending to spend the rest of your life with her, because to you she is beautiful, special and amazing, your world would be a colder and darker place without her. If this is the case, I would ask you to sit down with your gay friend some time and ask him about the loves of his life. He may not have a partner at the moment, but I expect that at some point or another he has been in love. If you listen carefully, without judging his choices, you will find that his capacity to love, to find one particular person beautiful, special and amazing is every bit as great as yours, it simply extends towards a different gender.
Deaf people can’t hear. A totally deaf person can read about the wonder of Bach, or Jimi Hendrix, but they won’t be able to experience it for themsleves. As you say, many deaf people have created communities for themselves, and consider their deafness to be a fundamental part of them. I’m sure there are experiences that a hearing person can’t appreciate that enrich the life of a deaf person, but there is also something fundamental that is unavailable to them.
A gay person has just as much capacity for love as a straight person. I think the main hope most parents have for their children is that they will be happy. A gay person is every bit as capable of achieving happiness as a straight person, it is only the intolerance of certain people and communities that sometimes stand in the way of that. I strongly doubt Mr Visible’s nephew has any kind of coherent aganda. I imagine he just wants to be allowed to grow up in peace, maybe go to college, perhaps get a job, maybe even one where he doesn’t have to keep his private life totally secret from those around him and perhaps, one day find someone beautiful, special and amazing that he wants to spend the rest of his life with.
. (The Cubs are a baseball team that Cecil likes, no?)
A Stick-Up is a small, round air freshener with an adhesive pad on the back. The Cubs locker room would be (I assume) a really smelly place. He’s comparing your (very eloquent, I’d like to note) posts to a breath of fresh air on a very old and nasty subject.