It’s disingenuous, or at the very least, naive, to suggest that legalizing same-sex marriage won’t threaten traditional marriage. It absolutely will, and I hope it does. Traditional marriage is an institution that has historically treated women as property and men as property owners. It has fueled our culture’s obsession with virginity and female purity, while justifying the rape of child brides and the battering of women who dare to not serve their husbands. A half-century’s worth of gender equality under Western law neither creates equality in practice nor does it negate thousands of years of subjugation.

Same-sex marriage subverts the gender roles that have dominated marriage — and by extension, society — for the great majority of human history. Every gay marriage is a statement against antiquated roles and practices we’ve come to take for granted.