One thing that has sometimes troubled me about seeking marriage equality for gays is that I think about single people being in a less secure place than the rest of us while we get all the goodies. But although I may sometimes be troubled, I recognize that in our quest for equality, marriage is the final hurdle, after which all the other equality issues will mostly melt away.

I know many single gay people who seemingly want partners, but for a variety of reasons have been unsuccessful. So I avoid discussion of the marriage issue with them. Life can be tough for single people on several levels. (This is one of the main reasons I support comprehensive health insurance reform, even though it won’t benefit me personally since I’m on Medicare now.)

But I wanted to add one or two more things before I’m done.

You said “the testimony is pretty clear”. I’d say maybe not”:

The Terman Life Cycle Study, which has been running since 1921, has found the longest-lived people either married and stayed married, or stayed single their whole lives.

A study of psychological well-being by Gove and Shin found married people had an average happiness of 3.3/4, always single people 3.2/4.

The Lifelines of Happiness study in Germany showed that marriage only increased happiness 0.25 out of 10 points, and then only for the first two years. Prior to marriage married and single people had similar levels of happiness (7.2/10 and 7.0/10).

And according to the CDC, similar percentages of married and single people report fair or poor health, 11% and 13% respectively.

So, in closing, given these small differences I’d say things are not in fact so clear.

I agree that singles are often discriminated against. I have been known to refer to Valentine’s Day as the day designed to make single people feel insignificant and miserable.

I also have friends who are married who don’t want children who feel the same way. Last month a friend told me how it feels to be with other married women who assume that “there must be a problem” and who “feel so sorry” for her. She loves her happily married child-less life but hates being pitied.

I’m sorry you are feeling excluded, but the testimony is pretty clear that on average married people live longer, are healthier, and are happier.

Marriage may not be for you. And that’s fine. Life would be very dull without single people – and historically, many of the world’s greatest contributors to literature, science, and philosophy were single (though that may also be because many of them were gay).

As I said, I’m not denying that there are benefits to relationships, just that sometime those benefits are used to castigate those who are not in relationships.

And I’m not saying that people here discriminate against singles…but there are discriminatory attitudes towards singles in this society, just as there are against gays. Not nearly as severe, but they do exist.

Which you would know if you used any of the resources I’ve been recommending to others here…there are multiple sources, not just Dr. DePaulo. Actuarial tables are perfectly acceptable, but they’re used to tell insurance companies about risk, NOT to provide detailed information about various groups.

You and most others aren’t aware of discrimination against singles. That’s fine, it’s a very new idea, one that most people hadn’t heard about. It takes time…just look how long anti-gay discrimination took to come to national attention.

But I was hoping the people here would understand the importance of acknowledging these negative attitudes, even if they’re an order of magnitude less than those experienced by gays.

Because what I hope is that once gay marriage becomes a reality nationally (and it will) people will recognize and respect a variety of family forms.

And since I’ve taken this topic way off course, I’ll close with that.

As to discrimination against single people, I don’t think most of us we even aware of “single” being a group. Having been single myself (and who knows, I might be again someday) I have yet to have experienced this discrimination for myself or seen it acted up on others in any fashion.

You come in here with a hard sell and act as if this is some type of hotbed of discrimination-happy hypocrites, when I have yet to see an example of stereotypes and bigotry against single people in this or any other thread.

This post was talking, in part, about what’s good about being in a relationship — surely you don’t suggest that talking favorably about the committed is somehow automatically a slam on the single?
Does that mean that when I talk about how much I am glad that I’m alive, that I’m totally dissing my recently deceased grandfather?

Perhaps I jumped the gun in assuming that you were referring to these stereotypes. Know that it was because I’ve all too often heard the benefits of being in a relationship used to criticize singles directly or indirectly.

Tim-

Actuarial tables don’t exactly strike me as adequate proof either. So, like I told Priya, I’d point you to either Dr. Paulo’s book, DePaulo herself, or to AtMP for additional information, if you want more information

I’d like to think that since BTB fights discrimination against gays, people here would be more open and accepting of other groups experiencing discrimination, and less likely to automatically accept stereotypes.

There is an assumption that single men (and perhaps women as well) are greater risk takers than married men. And greater risks lead to greater health issues.

One presumable measure of health could be auto safety. We know that auto insurance companies have lower rates for married men than for single men. And we know that these rates are based on actuarial tables that measure incidences of accidents.

I would imagine that this is consistent with other measures of risk, including both the physical type (mountain climbing) and the less direct type (more nights drinking in bars).

I have no studies to point to other than observation and testimony like that presented, but I think I would need more than “Dr. DePaulo says so” to change my thinking on this issue.

Funny, I didn’t mention either of these. Alan, that’s YOU drawing conclusions from two rather commonly observed benefits of being in a relationship.

There’s certainly nothing wrong with being single, but pretending that the benefits of a relationship don’t exist isn’t going to win you much respect.

How many times have we heard a story where a woman says “and if I hadn’t MADE HIM go to the hospital, we wouldn’t have found out about the ____ in time.”

It’s rather telling that you assume that any statement of benefits for couples is somehow a slam or “discrimination” against single people.