anything different is good. or not.

I think the fact that I have never read this perspective on the great  marriage debate just shows how little time I have spent on a college campus in the last 20 years.  From PZ Meyers:

"We say the ties between a couple should be made with respect and affection, not the strictures of law and precedent; letting gays marry, for instance, strengthens the public approval of our kinds of bond, while weakening the authoritarian bonds. Our ideal is a community of equals, while theirs is a hierarchy of power..."

This makes a certain amount of sense.  It has been hard for me to understand what a "threat" to marriage is,  being a godless liberal hedonist and all.  But this seems to put it in a pattern that I recognize where there is pushback  whenever traditional roles and relationships get more fuzzy.  I think this theme is played out over and over for as long as I can remember.  Our relationship with our environment has changed from one where we were living off the interest, of exploitation without consequences, to one where we are clearly depleting the principal.  Our role as a superpower is not simple anymore.  Wars are a mess where you can't even tell who is a soldier anymore.  Even our own history as a nation has changed, gone are the days of  "Born perfect and improving ever since."

It must feel like the last damn straw when the dirty hippies want to change marriage, too.