I for one see this dialogue as one that needs to take place. The point so many people are missing is the fact that behind these Orcs, Taurens, Gnomes, and such are real, actual people. Some of them are members of the GLBTQ community, and wish to extend that portion of their lives into that of their online persona. Where's the insanity in that?

Yes, this is a game. Yes, these characters are not real. But the emotional attachment to one's online avatar is quite real, and having a major portion of one's humanity cut off from expression due to an apparent "lack of maturity" by a bunch of random dipsticks just doesn't seem like justice to a lot of people.

You may see discrimination against the GLBT community as a trivial matter (there is differential treatment of same-sex marriage versus hetero marriage, thus discrimination). But being denied one's freedom to reference religion, for instance, would bother a hell of a lot of people, and such a denial would be just as arbitrary and unfair.

True, this debate is occurring within the confines of a private virtual world, but the community still has every right to *try* and make that world one they wish to be a part of.