Same-sex couples might be able to teach straight couples a thing or two about egalitarian relationships. And that's the precise threat to traditional marriage social conservatives are afraid of.

Oh, we liberals love to laugh

at right wingers, mostly evangelical Christians, who claim that same-sex

marriage is an assault on "traditional marriage." If a gay

couple down the street gets married, we reasonably ask, does that invalidate

your marriage? Are you going to get a divorce in protest?

These retorts leave our opponents sputtering,

mostly because they grasp for a lie to cover up for their homophobia,

and few people can really lie smoothly. Or they commit the fallacy of tautology , claiming that marriage simply is

between a man and a woman, many of them knowing as they say it how lame

that sounds — after all, everyone but the dumbest among us understands that marriage

is whatever society agrees it is.

However, just because conservatives dance

around why same-sex marriage is a threat to "traditional"

marriage, it doesn’t mean they’re crazy or don’t have their reasons for opposing it.

Mostly, they know that their reasons won’t sit well

with the general public. Which is why I read with amusement Tara Parker-Pope’s piece in the New York Times about why same-sex relationships

might be healthier on average than opposite-sex marriages.

The article had a tin ear for what makes opponents of same-sex marriage

fearful. Conservatives say that gay marriage is a threat to "traditional"

marriage, and this article all but answered, "Oh yes it is and thank God

for it."

The article was very convincing if you’re already convinced that

marriage equality, and equitable marriage, are good things.

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Controlling and hostile

emotional tactics, like belligerence and domineering, were less common

among gay couples. Same-sex couples were also

less likely to develop an elevated heartbeat and adrenaline surges during

arguments. And straight couples were more likely to stay physically

agitated after a conflict.

Sounds good, right? But

the reason for lower stress levels goes right back to why same-sex marriage

is indeed a threat to "traditional" marriage [emphases below are mine].

Notably, same-sex relationships,

whether between men or women, were far more egalitarian than

heterosexual ones… While the gay and lesbian

couples had about the same rate of conflict as the heterosexual ones,

they appeared to have more relationship satisfaction, suggesting that

the inequality of opposite-sex relationships can take a toll… The egalitarian

nature of same-sex relationships appears to spill over into how those

couples resolve conflict.

The Times

article argues that the equality modeled by same-sex relationships could

influence opposite-sex marriages to adopt that kind of equality. This is exactly the assault on "traditional" marriage that conservatives

are talking about.

In 1998, the Southern Baptist

Convention made a point of highlighting Ephesians 5:22-23. Not a random choice, this was a direct reaction to the creeping peril of feminism. The verse

made it loud and clear that "traditional marriage" is not egalitarian at all,

but that women should "submit to your husbands as to the Lord."

Which sounds like sound common sense to the largely male leadership

of the fundamentalist movement.

And now those yappity-yap decadent

liberals are telling us that not only should same-sex marriage be legal,

but that it might actually teach straight couples a thing or two. Opposite-sex couples can learn how

to relate more equitably, and equal marriages are happier.

Happier, pray tell,

for whom?

Not for the men who would suddenly be living in a world

where dishes don’t just do themselves and diapers aren’t changed

by magic. Men who face the prospect of having to give

up being right in every conflict, having to take the

wife’s opinion on finances seriously, or even of having their right

to name their wives after themselves called into question might dispute

the idea that they’d be "happier" in this new egalitarian world.

Like the husband

in this scenario:

Can you explain just how

submissive a wife should be towards a husband without losing her identity

and respect?….. Today the kids were eating

a hamburger in the car, and they were looking for a drink. My husband

says to the kids, "Grab your bottle of water" (they keep a

bottle in the car at all times). Well, I remembered I had a can of soda

in my purse, so I gave it to them, and he says I undermined his authority!

I didn’t think it was a big deal, but he did.

Do you think that guy is going

to read an article in the Times telling him gay marriage is good because

it might provide a model of equality for his own marriage? I suspect this man reading it will only be reassured that gays should not

get married, if they’re going to give his wife ideas about how she

has equal authority in their marriage.

The Times article doesn’t

hide the fact that it’s straight women who suffer from inequality

in opposite-sex marriage.

"Heterosexual married

women live with a lot of anger about having to do the tasks not only

in the house but in the relationship," said Esther D. Rothblum, a

professor of women’s studies at San Diego State University. "That’s

very different than what same-sex couples and heterosexual men live

with."

But fundamentalists would probably

argue that the solution isn’t to change marriage so women are happier

in it (because remember the threat of men with dishpan hands), but to

change women so they are happier being second class. Like this article:

Pray each morning that God

will guide you and give you a servant’s heart.

Do those with a servant’s

heart demand that their masters share the housework with them?

Not if they want to keep their jobs, they don’t.

The New York Times article read like

it was trying to soothe opponents of same-sex marriage by telling them

that their fears of a spreading contagion were ill-founded and that

same-sex marriages might actually be a model for more happiness through

equality.

But what if your opponents think that equality is the

very contagion from which they have to protect their own marriages?