Fridae

Joy Behar, co-host of the talk show The View on ABC (American Broadcasting Company), on Tuesday recounted her conversation with famed gay syndicated columnist Dan Savage on her own talkshow the night before and commented that gay couples "don't take monogamy and infidelity the same way that the straight community does." 

“If they have an affair… some one-stand night or whatever it is they get into… even though they are in a committed relationship, they don’t breakup the relationship straight people do.” She also suggested that fidelity might not have the "same weight" with gays as with straights.

Panel moderator Whoopi Goldberg and co-panelists Elisabeth Hasselbeck and Sherri Shepherd warned against generalisations and further tossed up questions about monogamy being viewed differently by opposite-sex and lesbian couples, and if gay males couples are better at separating love and sex.

Although considered an ardent and longtime straight ally of the gay community, her remarks drew criticism from gay bloggers who thought that her comments might have a negative impact of the same-sex marriage movement. 

Carolyn Plocher, a conservative commentator wrote on Newsbusters, a website devoted to ‘Exposing & Combating Liberal Media Bias’: “(G)ays are claiming that they simply want the right to participate in traditional marriage. But that couldn't be further from the truth. As a previous CMI article noted, many gays don't want to just participate in traditional marriage. They want to radically change it. 

“The idea of monogamy - the most basic component of heterosexual marriage - doesn't exist in the majority of homosexual relationships.” 

Prominent gay blogger Joe Jervis who agreed with Behar wrote in Joe.My.God.: "I imagine that many here will condemn Behar, but at least regarding gay men, in my experience and for my generation, she's quite correct. YMMV. [Your mileage may vary.]"

Savage blogged after The View aired: "Joy's right. Gay male couples generally don't view monogamy as the defining characteristic of a loving, committed relationship. Studies of male couples in long-term relationships have found that most gay male couples do allow for some ‘outside sexual contact,’ as they say, contacts that I wouldn't characterise as ‘affairs’ or ‘cheating.’ If there are no lies, if there is no betrayal, if neither partner is doing anything that violates the commitment he made to the other, then no one cheated and no one was cheated on.

“Which is not to say that there aren't monogamous gay couples out there. And all gay male couples—monogamous or not—value love, honesty, trust, respect, and commitment just highly as straight couples do. But it is generally true that gay male couples place less emphasis on sexual exclusivity over the multi-decade course of a relationship.”