Misplaced Patriot

Or, what are the right wingers defending?

I think I finally figured our what the folks who oppose gay marriage are resisting, and it is not gays. Gays are incidental to their objection.

The resistance, rather, is to the finalization of the equality of husband and wife in straight marriage.

Already, man and wife are pretty much identical from a legal point of view. Are there many legal differences in any states? The 20th century radically changed marriage in the United States, and primarily that has meant the diminishment of the power and rights of the husband.

But there is still an inherent asymmetry in the heterosexual marriage, so that culturally quite a few people believe that the roles of "husband" and "wife" are quite different, even if their legal standing is the same. If gays are allowed to marry, however, then who is the "husband" and who is the "wife?" Who is the patriarch? Who "wears the pants" in this family? Gay marriage gives a model of an equal marriage to a society that resists it.

That is why they say that marriage is threatened. To them, marriage is still about the power of a man over his family. Gay marriage threatens this by eliminating the roles of "husband" and "wife."