When we choose to ignore, change or distort what God has called good (Genesis 1:31), we must brace ourselves for the consequences that will inevitably come with such a decision. This issue didn't start with "gay marriage". It started in the garden when the woman chose to circumvent her husband's headship and the man allowed her to do so. It grew with the egalitarian and feminist movements in the culture and the church and now we see the continued consequences in so-called same-sex marriage.
Don't like gay marriage? Don't get one. My gay marriage doesn't change anything about your straight marriage. We're not altering the definition of marriage; we're expanding it. These new rights don't take away yours. So don't try to deny them to us.
The startling rise in public approval for gay marriage depends on such simple appeals to intuition. Look at all these happy gay couples. Why not invite them to join the party and get married? It's not like straight couples have done such a good job of commending the institution. Besides, what consenting adults do in the privacy of their bedrooms is their business alone.
To our highly individualistic Western culture, only libertarian arguments make any sense, even to many Christians. Personally we might say homosexuality is a sin; but what right do we have to impose our values on anyone else? If they aren't harming anyone else, then who can deny their gay marriages equal protection under the law?
Such questions have put Christians and other religious and even secular moral conservatives on the defensive. So it's surprising that Liza Mundy in her new cover story for The Atlantic, "The Gay Guide to Wedded Bliss," would threaten to forfeit the tactical advantage of supposed neutrality. She argues that gay marriages tend to be happier and more intimate, so straights can learn from them. Mundy even acknowledges the critics may be correct after all that gay marriage will change marriage for everyone. All to the better, Mundy writes: "by providing a new model for how two people can live together equitably, same-sex marriage could help haul matrimony more fully into the 21st century."
What exactly does she mean by these changes for the better? She means most basically that gay marriages erode differences between the sexes. There are no gendered roles and responsibilities. Men who love caring for babies and doing the laundry should do what feels right. Women who don't like to cook should work late instead. She believes that when we unshackle marriage from traditional expectations, we'll make it more appealing to the growing number of young adults who forsake the institution altogether or delay it much later than previous generations. And same-sex couples are already making marriage cooler, she says, leading to "nuptial fever" and a rush to the altar.
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