Marriage: a contract between unequal partners.

       So I woke this morning with an epiphany.  I think I see the reason that same sex marriage is so threatening to so many "traditionalists".  The reason is that marriage is binding of unequals.  Very few marriages between men and women are without strife or conflict or arguements or other very serious imbalances.  The further back in time we look the more gross and extreme this gender imbalance is.  Look at all the radical moves toward equality have occurred in the last couple of centuries:  Women gained a right to not be married off as children to whomever her father decides, to become educated, to take jobs, to own land, to vote, to not be abused, to choose pregnancy, and so many other "rights" that men have traditionally lorded over women.  Marriage has always been a contract between unequal partners.

Today, men must face a woman as he has never faced her before: he has to face her as a mirror.  This is not something he is used to doing.  He's always had the upper hand.  And women must also look at the man as something she has never had to see either: as a flawed and vulnerable being who cannot always protect her.  She's always had protection from the outside world (even if not from her own husband).  Even today, the most ardent defenders of the notion of  "one man, one woman" marriage are those who most adhere to a seperation of roles based on gender.  Men are the providers of money and security, they believe, and the women nurture and bear children.  (Its always about children-they claim.) 

Relationships of same-sex couples are more equal.  Two men don't squabble over who is "supposed" to do laundry, or who is "supposed" to bring home the bacon.  When people of the same-sex do have long term relationships, they may have to work out who does what, but the roles are not predetermined by who is a boy and who is a girl.  The relationship is far more level and even since two men or two women cannot separate roles based on gender.  That is a large part of the reason their relationships threaten what little is left of the imbalanced marriage contract.

I realize this is an incomplete generalization, and I think of some Jewish couples I know  whose relationships are very balanced and equal.  But then, they all have gay friends.