TxDoc, your position is certainly debated in the gay community, and most gays would welcome a world in which the ideal you describe is the practice. That ideal world has been termed "post-gay" and we're slowly approaching that. But as long as gay people in the US and elsewhere are treated as second-class citizens, as long as people can be fired from their jobs for being gay, as long as the federal government has laws on the books REQUIRING discrimination against gay people (DOMA, DADT), as long as gay-bashing and homophobia make people afraid for their safety, then gay people will march in parades to be visible and demand their rights. Those of us who can march in parades and be visible are doing it for all those can't: the people who remain closeted out of fear, the high school kid struggling to tell a parent that they're gay, the service member who has to edit every word they say just to serve their country. When a gay couple can walk down the street holding hands anywhere in the country without fear or even getting stared at, and when everyone is not automatically presumed to be straight and presumed to have two parents of the opposite sex, then we will have arrived. But until then, gay people will seek out groups and situations where they can feel comfortable being themselves and showing affection to a partner in public. And even after that day arrives, there will be gay social groups just to increase the odds of finding dating material.