Gay marriage not acceptable to many immigrants

From the NY Times:

Larry Yang, the Korean-American owner of a hardware store next door, said he resented such a public promotion of same-sex marriage. He said many among the large number of Korean-American Christians in Queens felt similarly but feared that if they spoke out they would be demonized by a liberal majority.

The legalization of same-sex marriage in New York State has been embraced by many in the city. But in some neighborhoods heavily populated by immigrants from countries where homosexuality is less accepted, the idea is stirring feelings of unease or, at times, outright disgust.

Sunnyside has been transformed in recent decades, first by immigration, and more recently by urban professionals priced out of Manhattan. As in some other parts of the city, same-sex marriage has laid bare the clash between the social conservatism of many immigrants and the values of the often wealthier and more liberal newcomers to the neighborhood.

Many immigrants in Sunnyside are Muslims from Turkey, where the military, the guardian of the country’s secular state, regards homosexuality as a disorder. On a recent day on 46th Street, a group of men hunched over Turkish newspapers next to a mosque in a part of the neighborhood that includes kebab shops, a Jewish community center, a Romanian restaurant and a Russian hairdresser.

In Flushing, Queens, one of New York’s most polyglot neighborhoods, with one of the largest Asian communities in the country, opponents of same-sex marriage said they had felt sidelined during the debate over it.

...Mr. Yang, the hardware store owner, dismissed the free wedding reception as a cynical ploy.

“It’s a business thing, because a lot of gay people live here,” he said. “I have no problem with my gay customers. But we are Korean. We are conservative. No one says, ‘This gay marriage is a good thing.’ What is this world coming to?”