I like a little bit of variety in my love stories/sideplots, and I like to see what other walks of life look like, so gay characters and their corresponding romances are great if you ask me! If you feel love and pain then I can empathize with you, no matter who you are.

It just shouldn't be a bad thing to not have a gay character in your story. That should be just fine.

About 5% of Americans openly identify as LGBTQ so, to be even semi-realistic, gay characters should be a bit of a rarity (celebrated for their uniqueness in the situations in which they DO appear, of course).

I recognize that the long reigning disenfranchisement and history of fear and abuse that queer folk have had to endure makes this a seemingly tonedeaf and/or tasteless notion, and I'm sorry if it comes off that way, but I don't feel that it would be fair to chastise me for the only point that I am actually trying to make: IMO there should be a bit more accuracy in how stories represent groups of people, especially if being representative of said group is a claim that the story is making.