What's happening to gay men these days? Gay men used to be the arbiters of taste. Now, there's no accounting for their taste. Lady Gaga? I gave a Mardi Gras party earlier this year and some of the young gay men who attended didn't know how to make a good martini or a manhattan, let alone a Sazerac.

These young men were more interested in gender theory than they were in gin. Now, they're out panting for same-sex marriage. How can you be happily married if you don't know how to make a decent cocktail?

Lightheartedness aside, the present situation of GLBT people is a serious matter. Their push for same-sex/gay marriage threatens not only their acceptance but also undermines one of the fundamental institutions of society. Like the French Revolution, this push for same-sex/gay marriage may end by the revolutionaries eating their own adopted children.

The whole same-sex/gay marriage debate baffles me. This is not what many gays wanted when they asked for changes in the sodomy laws in the 60s. The only explanation I see for this collective insanity is that since the 60s, the overriding metaphor in our politics has been "civil rights." Today, every minority and odd cause is now a civil rights issue.

When anyone can marry anyone else -- or anything -- marriage is a voided distinction. Same-sex/gay marriage is a step on the road to abolishing marriage, just as "undocumented worker" is a step on the road to abolishing the traditional concept of U.S. citizenship.

That being said, what is it progressives really want? Do they want same-sex marriage or do they want gay marriage? The bill now before Illinois lawmakers, changes the definition of marriage currently set in state law from "between a man and a woman" to "between 2 persons."

If this change in the law means "same-sex marriage," then what will stop a father from marrying his son of a mother from marrying her daughter, or two sisters from marrying each other? If it is "gay" marriage that progressives want, how do you objectively prove someone is "gay?" Can two men pretend to be gay and get married to avoid deportation, for example?

Those who favor same-sex/gay marriage ought to see the movie Brokeback Mountain (2005). This movie is a classic western, with a twist. In the classic western, the hero is caught in a struggle against good and evil, with a natural setting as the raw stage where his struggle is played out.

In Brokeback Mountain all the elements of a classic western are present except the tragic heroes are "gay." It is by being gay that their struggle, set against nature, is made evident. The heroes lead lives devoid of art and religion and must find solace by retreating into the natural world.

Nature is both judge and sanctuary in Brokeback Mountain. What difference would same-sex marriage have made, then? What difference would it make in our world, today? What difference will same-sex marriage make in the Muslim or Chinese Communist world, today? Clearly, the answer is no difference whatsoever, because gay love is, as many lovers learn, a love from the spirit and not from nature.

Billions of men and women who have never seen Brokeback Mountain still believe in a love grounded in nature and gender differences. If anything, same-sex marriage in the United States will simply demonstrate to these billions that Western Civilization is far along the way to decay.

What is the reason, then, for pushing a gay agenda that includes same-sex/gay marriage? Could it be, then, that the reason for same-sex/gay marriage would be to turn the violence gays have suffered back onto those who commit that violence? Same-sex/gay marriage is a tire iron blow to the face of the straight institution of marriage.

The violence to gays shown in Brokeback Mountain should remind everyone that to be against same-sex/gay marriage is not to be against GLBT people. To be against same-sex/gay marriage is not to be blind to the problems and discrimination GLBT people suffer in the world. Be that as it may, same-sex/gay marriage is not a moral or a practical solution to these problems or that discrimination.

Granted, traditional marriage is a practical institution that blends religion, history, and the state. Most men and women don't mind this practical arrangement. They don't mind the confusion, either, that often comes with human love. They see the practical arrangement of marriage between one man and one woman as something that is not unjust or a denial of so-called equality.

For many GLBT people, same-sex/gay marriage will become a disappointing illusion that will not change reality. Same-sex/gay marriage will be getting even, not getting equal. The best example to make this point is to see what happened to the original civil rights movement after the movement was kidnapped by progressives.

The data is clear. After more than 75 years of Democratic Party rule and civil rights agitation, Chicago is still the most segregated city in the United States. The Chicago Democrats have created a "clockwork brown" culture in Chicago's black and segregated neighborhoods of flash mobs and murder.

Following in Chicago's civil rights footsteps, same sex/gay marriage will be used to gain votes, but so-called marriage equality will not give GLBT people what they need and want -- acceptance and healing. Those two goods will be found only in what the 1963 broke-back world of Texas and Arizona lacked, art and then religion.

With same-sex/gay marriage only the door to getting even for GLBT people is wide open. If they walk through that door, they will be welcomed to a beige world without taste or marriage, where no one knows how to make a decent martini.