Last week, we gave you Benoit Denizet-Lewis’ NYT piece on how young gay men in their 20’s are getting hitched.

Denizet-Lewis got majorly criticized for profiling only white, middle-class, educated men, leading some to wonder whether he simply chose to ignore people of color.

His reply:

“Some of you have questioned why I focused only on white couples in my story. I did so because I could not find a single married male couple of color in their twenties in Massachusetts to write about. I spent a month looking, and I was only able to find one couple of color (both men are Asian). But they were in a long-distance relationship (one lived in Boston, the other in California), and I was not able to spend time with them together before my deadline.

“Am I claiming that there are no young gay married male couples of color living in Massachusetts? Absolutely not. There may be some (there certainly are plenty of gay male couples of color who aren’t married), but after a month of looking (calling gay organizations, sending out countless emails, asking every gay person I knew to ask every gay person they knew, etc.), I did not find any who were married. I knew I would be criticized for not including a young gay couple of color. But I could not write about something I could not find.

“I do reference a study in my article that found that those who are choosing to register their relationships are “overwhelmingly European American.” (Other demographers and gay marriage experts seconded the findings of that study.) I have attached the complete study, but what follows is the relevant text. The entire study can be found in handy PDF form at the end of this posting.

“I was also criticized by some for writing about upper-middle-class people. While several of the young men I profile are far from upper-middle-class (Brandon Andrew is a waiter and struggles to pay his art school college tuition on his own; Vassili is also a waiter; Marc works as a manager of a dental office), demographers and those who have studied what kind of gay men register their relationships have found that the vast majority are a) college educated, b) well off financially. This is especially true in Massachusetts.

“Should I have done more explaining in my story about why I focused on the couples I did? Perhaps. Should someone write an article looking at why it seems to be mostly white and financially well off gay men who are getting married? Absolutely. (I may even do it myself.) But I hope this email, and the text of the study I reference, will help explain where I was coming from.”