Nah...
If only...
People will always read different things into things...
If you look hard enough for connections or subtext or whatever, yuou can usually find SOMETHING and make an implied connection.. Even if it was not the creator's intention...

A better example of a character becoming gay would be Karma. One of the better ones, I think.

I didn't say she was, only I woud not be surprised. In he early years of appearances in the comics, she had many of the marks of the sexually confused.

A young lady that joined a team full of interesting, handsome, sensitive young men, and yet she doesn't seem to be too interested in anyone of them. Formed a strong bond almost immediately with Jean Grey. Met the Japanese girl, Yukio, and found in her a "kindred spirit" that "awakened" her wild side in her mohawk years.

Her flings with men had been all brief and inconclusive (Arkon, Dracula?).

I think her first serious (non-retconned) romantic interest was Forge, and that more than 10 years after she was introduced?

A serious case could have been made in those days that Storm was a lesbian, a bisexual, or at least confused. Well, now she is married, and her aloofness could always be attributed to other factors. But if Chris Claremont had revealed her as a lesbian in 1979, it wouldn't have seemed forced (I realize Marvel would not let him do it, though).

Being gay is a birth defect, like a club foot or cleft palate

See, it's things like "birth defect" that are making people react to you like a bigot. A less inflammatory analogy (club foot and cleft palate? really? that's what you came up with?) would be, say, being born left-handed. If you don't want to have people over-react to you, you can't open with something that's immediately going to put them on the defensive...

Even so, in an ideal world where everyone had the same rights and acceptance, I don't think many gays would feel a strong need to flaunt it. But in a world where a lot of people are out there doing their best to paint homosexuality in a negative light, flaunting it becomes a defense mechanism to balance things out.

And I'm pretty tolerant of differences, except when those "different people" are out to deny me my rights. Live and let live. You live your life the way you want it. I certainly didn't feel angry when Chris Claremont started to explore Nightcrawler's catholicism in a very positive light in X-Men, even though I'm not a Catholic. I didn't feel angry or threatened when they made him even MORE Catholic in the movie. The X-Men has a big cast, by all means, lets make them diverse.

And even though I don't have a lot of sympathy for Christianity (or any of the Abrahamic religions, I like Islam even less), I don't feel any dread when I think that kids will be exposed to Nightcrawler in the movie. I don't want to rule the world, I don't want to tell kids what to think, and I don't want anyone else to be just like me. I just want people to let me be what I am, and to be able to do the same stuff everyone else does.

I don't think, for instance, that a woman should be "tolerant" of certain African tribes that practice genital mutilation. I know this is a lot less extreme case, but I'm not tolerant of people that think I should be "kept in my place", and I never will be.

I'm not in the habit of discussing my sexuality with strangers unasked, and much less with kids (I don't even like kids). But I would never try to act "manly" in front of any kid, and I certainly wouldn't lie to a kid that asked me why I'm holding hands with a guy, the same way I think no straight guy would be expected to tell a kid that the lady he's been kissing is just his "friend". Now, if a comic book marketed to kids had any gays or (straight people, for that matter) having graphic sex or something, then yeah, I'd be concerned.

And I have to say that I'm not hot on writers retconning characters into being gay. But I don't remember many cases of that in a Marvel/DC comic. Rawhide Kid? In Beast's case, he wasn't really gay, as pointed above. And it wouldn't make any sense for him to be gay, as he's been pretty much established as a ladies man in many Avengers stories. Now, if a character has been presented fairly ambiguously (as is the case with Storm or Obsidian or Renee Montoya, for instance), then making them gay or bisexual and "coming out" isn't really an unnatural development.

I believe the situation for Gays in up here in Canada is probably better than down south, and I think you should be treated equally as a straight couple. I could just do without the parade every summer that I believe does more harm than good for your cause. People are less likely to think of someone as a deviant if they're not wearing a leather thong and dog collar while waving a dildo around in a parade.

Oh, and that thing about all straights secretly wishing they were gay? Sorry man, not true. Don't tell your friends though, wouldn't want to spoil it for them. We are however jealous of your fasion sense and ability to get along with women so well.

All joking aside, it's really sad that people can sympathize and empathize with the mutants and their struggle to be accepted and cheer for them in their fights against the Sentinels, or the Purifiers, or other humans who fear the mutants, yet at the same time, try to slap down the gay community who are far less a threat to peace than an imaginary mutant is... Gays and lesbians want nothing more than to be left alone in peace, but with the same benefits that heterosexual couples enjoy.

Gay people are just as normal as you are, 'morecowbell2001', maybe even moreso, because we have a lot of social injustice and prejudice to bear. The stigma of being a mutant-- oops, I mean gay- forces people to hide in fear from families and friends. It forces some to turn to suicide. The internal anguish shared by the mutant community is something we gay people can relate to because it IS US!

The demonstrations and marches of the gay community will continue--because it is an injustice to treat us as 'separate but equal'. We love just like anyone else. It's about time people like you stop associating gays or lesbians as deviants. We are PEOPLE, with the same feelings as you. Just because gays and lesbians can find love in places you cant, it doesn't make us different. We love just as deeply, we pay just as many taxes, we get mad at being treated unfairly just like you do. But we don't get the benefits you do, and don't get the treatment you do, so until we do, the demonstrations will continue. Unlike the mutants, mature gays and lesbians who have accepted who they are will not run and hide in fear. Why is that?

It is because some of us have seen the truth, and the truth has set us free. We are free from condemnation, but not free from religious intolerance. We are free from the shackles of wrong teachings of both Church and State, but we are not free from social ignorance and injustice. We are free to choose our loved ones and express that love with great passion, but we are not free from laws that try to deny us that same love. So we will march and demonstrate and parade in peaceful ways to show that we are no different. We are NOT asking for MORE, we are asking for THE SAME.

You don't know anguish until your loved one is in a hospital room, all alone, dealing with his fear of the future by himself because you, his partner of many years, are denied visitation rights because you're not his 'kin'-- that same kin that rejected him because of who he loves. You've never been denounced and degraded by your church pastor in the presence of the entire congregation just for loving someone who has better morals and ethics than 99% of the congregation, a regular tither, and a fierce prayer warrior, simply because he loves a man and not a woman.

I don't mean to write long messages all the time, but this time, I hope it was worth it-- maybe someone has seen the light, and can be a little less defensive next time a gay person is mentioned in a comic book... it's just a comic book, for crying out loud. The real issues are here in OUR world.

Finally, I'll leave you with a quote from Clarence Page, a syndicated columnist at the Chicago Tribune: "If you aren't in favor of gay marriage, don't have one." 'Nuff said already.

"Stop overreacting! I'm just messing around!"

If only they could see how much of a stereotype they are.

I forgot about that revelation. I always understood the case to be that No-Girl was a joke made up by Basilisk at first. Maybe he was just using Martha's codename to make fun of Xorn, and I misunderstood.