As a college student in the early 1970s, Tommi Avicolli Mecca joined the Gay Liberation Front, one of the first groups to publicly challenge the notion of the American nuclear family.

This week, 30 years later, the San Francisco activist has opted to stay on the sidelines in a defining moment for the gay-rights movement. "I don't want to be a part of it," he says. "In some senses, it feels like the whole gay marriage thing is like getting a little house with a white picket fence in the suburbs with a dog."

In recent days, thousands of gay marriage advocates have overrun the steps, halls, and offices of the Massachusetts State House in support of a November ruling by the state's highest court that gays have a constitutional right to marry. But if they have created a united front to state lawmakers, the gay community itself is divided on whether marriage is the right priority.

Many gays and lesbians plan to wed. Many others will not. Some want to marry as a legal protection or as the only nondiscriminatory way to validate their love. But marriage is also seen as a flawed institution, as a conservative step backward, unwinding years of work to redefine notions of family.

"There is a difference between liberation and equality," says Joan Tronto, a professor of political science at Hunter College who was active in the women's liberation movement and has no intention of marrying her partner of 10 years. "Politically it is easier to say, 'Let us in. We're just like you.' But it takes away some of the radical edge."

The difference in attitudes often falls along generational lines. Charles Martel, a Boston psychotherapist whose clients include many gay couples, says marriage seems natural to younger couples, especially those with children. Meanwhile, older clients, many of whom fought to restructure the definition of family in the 60s and 70s, are more mistrustful.

"Marriage wasn't something they had ever thought about," says Mr. Martel. "They didn't grow up with people who were out. It's a totally different language [to them]."

Take Carl Sciortino, the manager of research opportunities at Fenway Community Health in Boston. The 20-something always knew he'd get married. "I didn't know how it would happen," he says, "but I knew I was going to have a family some day."

Does he expect his gay friends to get hitched soon? "Oh, yeah," he says, laughing. "Even the friends that are my age, who aren't fully ready ... want that license, before the chance passes."

He is referring to a two-year window of opportunity from May 17, when the court said the state must begin granting marriage licenses, to the time an amendment could conceivably be added to the state constitution, in 2006.

But for Avicolli Mecca, a tenants' activist who works with homeless gay youths in San Francisco, marriage is not a priority. "If that's what people want, that's OK," he says. "But marriage is a luxury we cannot afford. I'm not going to spend my time fighting for it."

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