With friends like these…

Sometimes I can’t believe the swill I read in Slate. Today’s offering of Shit That Pisses Me Off in Slate is a treatise on the possibility that some opponents of gay marriage are really just motivated by sexism—and, hey, feminists and progressive men are really the problem, anyway.

[W]hat if these gay-marriage bans were not animated by anti-gay bigotry? What if they represent a deeper-seated anxiety about gender and gender roles? What if popular aversion to gay marriage has less to do with hating same-sex couples than with a deep psychological attachment to a powerful symbol of sex difference: the tulle-covered bride and the top-hat-and-tails groom?

What if. Yes, what if anti-gay crusaders were motivated by their desire to protect traditional gender roles that favor the subjugation of women? Gee, no one’s ever thought of the correlation between sexism and homophobia before! It’s probably just a crazy coincidence that straight feminist bloggers tend to be the strongest LGBT ally in the blogosphere, rather than any insight into an association between the attacks on gay rights and women’s rights predicated by a desire among a certain segment of straight men to retain their undeserved dominion.

After San Francisco's same-sex marriage experiment, one observer in a red county nearby complained: "God made marriage for Adam and Eve; not Adam and Steve." It's telling that this objection to same-sex marriage doesn't rely on moral condemnation of same-sex couples but instead on the most primordial account of natural sex difference.

Finding anything “telling” about the old “Adam and Steve” chestnut ought to disqualify anyone from writing about the issues of gender and sexuality right from the starting blocks.

A lot of the resistance is less about sexual orientation than about sex difference. In other words, it's not about the difference between gay and straight; it's about the difference between male and female. By this logic, conventional marriage doesn't exclude gay couples from a special status reserved for straights; it excludes women from a special status reserved for men—that of husband—and excludes men from a status reserved for women—that of wife.

Uh, okay. The whole “some people don’t like the idea of two people of the same sex making a couple” thing is a pretty good explanation of one of the key features of homophobia. This is a perfect example of why this article is complete shit. In trying to prove that opponents aren’t motivated exclusively by homophobia, but instead by an immutable preference for traditional gender roles, the author simply pulls homophobia apart from one of its roots and then claims they’re two different things.

Essentially, the entire piece is an exercise in attempting to unearth legitimacy for those who claim, “I don’t hate gays; whatever they do in the privacy of their homes is their business.” The unspoken notion that follows is that any expression of homosexuality in the public sphere, whether a display of affection or a marriage, is discomfiting and ergo should be denied. Repackaging it as simply favoring traditional gender roles is disingenuous at best and betrays a fundamental misunderstanding of the sources of homophobia.

It's no secret that traditional sex roles are in crisis. They've been battered by feminism's attacks on male privilege and feminine mystique. Macho women have mocked female virtues (consider the gun-toting Thelma and Louise, the oversexed Samantha Jones of Sex and the City, or the wooden-stake- and holy-water-wielding Buffy). And house husbands, Mr. Moms, and "metrosexuals" have similary [sic] rejected or lampooned traditional masculinity.

Not redefined masculinity in a way that suits them. Just rejected or lampooned traditional masculinity. See, now that’s telling.

And as far as I'm concerned, the state has no business propping up distinctive sex roles in any context—that's a job for Wonderbras and Viagra.

Oy. Just oy.

But a hunger for distinctive sex roles is just not the same thing as anti-gay bigotry.

No, it’s not the same thing, but it’s not a separate thing, either. The two are inextricably linked to one another, which is why there are rarely pro-choice anti-gay crusaders or pro-life gay rights advocates. Even the Bush-cult bloggers who invoke pretenses of libertarianism to try to distance themselves from the most heinous expressions of conservatism stipulate that they are both pro-choice and in favor of gay marriage. There’s a reason the two go inevitably hand-in-hand, and it’s because an acceptance of increased freedoms for women and an acceptance of full equality for the LGBT community (or their opposites) are spawned of the same seed: Approval or rejection of traditional sex roles.

And if, despite all this, marriage remains at the top of the gay-rights agenda, proponents should try to respond to the inchoate fears and legitimate concerns of a large and potentially movable nonbigoted opposition, rather than attacking them as hateful bigots.

And so concludes Slate’s apologia for homophobes and sexists. Those who favor traditional gender roles—to the point that they reject gay marriage because of it—are not bigots, nor sexists. The End.

Not considered anywhere in the article: The straight couples found throughout America—even in my small Indiana town—who operate “traditionally,” with a stay-at-home mom and working dad, strictly out of personal preference, but also support gay marriage. The truth is, traditional gender roles isn’t the issue. It’s, as noted in the introduction, the “anxiety about gender and gender roles.” Nothing about gay marriage precludes straight couples from aligning themselves along traditional gender lines. It’s the people who can’t get past their own assumptions that a changing society will hurt them who have this problem—and that’s precisely what bigotry is.