BostonHerald.com – Marie Szaniszlo
As Boston celebrated its annual Gay Pride Parade yesterday, some gays were wondering whether same-sex marriage has become the death knell of gay culture.
?Not bad in the way right-ringers mean, of course, what with the epidemic of divorce, self-multilation, child-snatching and God knows what else they imagined was going to happen,? wrote Chris on leftcenterleft.com.
Rather, he suggested, gay marriage seems to have exacerbated the decline of the ?gay ghetto,? created a ?profusion of conservative gays? and become a ?one-dimensional definer of the community and its political platform.?
The corner of Clarendon and Tremont streets – once the parade?s focal point and the epicenter of gay life in Boston – is now predominantly straight, for example, Chris noted.
Among the venues brides.com lists for bachelorette parties, for example, is Jacques, purportedly the oldest drag bar in the country.
William York, a longtime employee, attributes the club?s evolution not to the legalization of gay marriage but to the explosion of the Internet.
?Gay people don?t come out as much as they used to because the Internet has made it easier to meet people,? said York, 37.