Thought Experiment for my Straight Friends

Imagine that you grew up in a world dominated by gays, where straight people were called "fags" and teased mercilessly at school. Imagine that movies and television focussed almost exclusively on same-sex relationships, and that any straight characters who did appear were portrayed as stereo-typed weirdos. Imagine that the only straight people you ever actually saw were treated as outcasts by the rest of society, and that you attended a Church where the minister told you that a relationship with a person of the opposite sex was a sin in the eyes of God, punishable by spending all eternity in hell. Imagine that marriage between a man and a woman was illegal.

How do you imagine this kind of upbringing would have impacted you? Specifically, how do you think this would effect your ability to form and maintain a meaningful relationship with someone of the opposite sex, even assuming that you could find someone with the courage to have such a relationship with you? How would your life be different? How would you be different?

There is no question that the treatment of gays has improved tremendously over the past 20 years. Back then, gay marriage was not on anyone's radar. But then again, neither was a Black president of the United States. So things have changed, and it seems that the tide is moving inexorably in the right direction.