Dear Prudence,
I was raised in a very liberal home, both politically and socially, and I still consider myself very liberal. My pet peeve is gay married couples using the terms “wife” and “husband.” It seems to me that gays use the term more often than hetero couples do. “My wife this, my wife that.” I was raised that it was polite to use names, not pronouns. This is pretty much the same. I almost never say “my husband said.” I say, “Frank said.” But my real peeve is feeling something precious has been stolen from me. The term wife and husband had a specific meaning since the dawn of mankind. Now it has a more legal meaning. I wish society would create another word for the legal relationship of two same-sex people who love each other. Does this make me homophobic?