As a single person, I'm in the same boat as gay couples.
Gay marriage supporters want to throw me overboard in
order to join the favored group, forcing me to subsidize
a slightly larger group of people. Why should I do
anything but oppose that?
Assuming you are straight, your being out of the favored group is your choice. At any time, you are allowed to go out and find someone who you find sexually and romantically attractive and who finds you the same, and marry them, thus getting the benefits of the subsidies you listed.
Gays aren't given this option. If they want the subsidies, they have to marry someone they aren't attracted to.
Due to their preferences, gays find heterosexual marriage undesirable. Many straight people also find heterosexual marriage undesirable.
I fail to see what the difference is, apart perhaps from the magnitude of the desires. In either case, one must go against one's preferences to get a subsidy.
Magnitude of desires? Unless you're asexual, you're not going against your sexual preferences by marrying a heterosexual woman. I have no interest in getting married and neither does my girlfriend. She's opposed to it on philosophical grounds (related to Prop 8, actually), and I just think the whole thing is a ridiculous sham. But, I would never throw an oppressed minority under the bus just because I think marriage is a joke.
I humbly invite you to go seek out a handful of people who identify as gay or lesbian and ask them why they feel like they should be allowed the right to marry, regardless of their intention to actually do so.
It shouldn't be very hard in the NYC area to find a handful.
Unless you're asexual, you're not going against your sexual preferences by marrying a heterosexual woman.
Some people are in fact asexual, and prefer no sex. Others may prefer not to be married, even if they do wish to have sex with people of the opposite gender.
These are both preferences; what makes them less deserving of protection than a preference for gay marriage over straight marriage?
I understand that some people are asexual, which is why I mentioned that. Asexual people get a raw deal, there's no question about that.
I'm all for eliminating marriage subsidies, but let's take it one step at a time and recognize that there are literally millions of people in the United States who are being discriminated against by the state.
Saying that gay and lesbian individuals shouldn't be extended the rights enjoyed by the rest of the adult population of the United States because the entire institution is unfair misses the point.
Gays aren't given this option. If they want the subsidies, they have to marry someone they aren't attracted to.