Honestly, this is one of the reasons I don't like to reach for statistics in this kind of debate - because of what you've highlighted here. The numbers on the survey say one thing, but they paint a rosier picture than reality.

> My aunts don’t want to grant government sanction to same-sex relationships, but it’s unfair to say they’re a danger to the “existence” of gay people.

I consider my relationship with my husband to be a core part of my identity (certainly not the only part, of course). It's a major part of who I am and how I move about the world; how I exist within it and relate to it. And this is what straight people do, as well - and for them, it's considered absolutely normal (and society even encourages it in some ways).

What's unfair, to me, is to say that my "existence" is only relegated to physically living - life is about a lot more than that. We're not talking about killing the gays, here. We're talking about people who'd like to force the gays back into the closet so that they don't have to hear about relationships that they think are an affront to their religion.

Your Aunts aren't calling for the extermination of gay people, and that's good. But we shouldn't pretend that "they can live" is tolerant.

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As an aside, we're pretty far into the weeds with this, although I think what we're talking about is still important to discuss. My original comment, last night, was about how the policy can harm people, and how it can be abused - not so much about what we're discussing now.