Part of the societal issue is that when some people hear "gay" or "gay lifestyle" the thought immediately goes to sexual activity. We don't  do that when we hear "straight".  When I was in the seminary we were told that if you were gay you cannot go to "gay bars". However, the straight seminarians were not told they can not go to straight bars. The fact is that some people go to bars to "hook up" in straight bars as well as gay bars and some people go to bars to socialize in straight bars as well as gay bars. The thought in the seminary was that if you were going to gay bars you were looking for sex but if you went to straight bars you were not. 

 A parishioner  commented to me that even though I  was gay it didn't matter a long as I was celibate. You see, that is confusing sexual identity with sexual activity.  I have kept my promise of celibacy but that does not mean that my sexual identity "doesn't matter".

PS: The archbishop denied my requests to meet to discuss this personally