My point is that there is a deeply felt gender difference that a large proportion of the population just get, and I believe that the people who oppose gay marriage find their sense of what marriage is about to be offended for reasons that are very deeply entangled with the same root cause of the feelings we have about those changing rooms. It is not precisely the same, and it might not be rational. But I suggest that we dismiss those feelings at our peril.

You've articulated people's objection right on. Thank you! To dismiss the "deeply felt gender difference" among the population will indeed be at our peril if we supporters of gay rights do not take it into context.

My feeling is that "deeply felt gender difference" has been used to justify all manner of injustices against women, (women couldn't attend college, women couldn't hold bank accounts in their own name, women still don't get paid as much as men for doing the same job, etc). We ignore at our peril the ways society has struggled to face our own bullsh*t on this topic.

"Deeply felt gender difference" is used to justify mistreating gays as well. Often violently, always irrationally, but also legally and institutionally. Same sex marriage calls us on our social bullshit. Suddenly we're forced to talk about things we felt everybody understood intuitively. Ths is probably what outrages opponents of homosexuality most. But "intuition" is oftentimes a convenient social fiction to maintain the status quo.

I am a black woman, the mother of a bi-racial son, and the sister, aunt, niece and friend to MANY gay people. You may not see how "deeply felt gender difference" and "deeply felt race difference" are relevant to each other, but in my own life I can't but help notice. It disappoints me that so many folks are touchy about comparing black rights and gay rights.

No, interracial marriage and same sex marriage are not perfect analogues of each other... but there ARE many valid similarities. Why? Because Oppression tends to show up in the same pattern wherever you find it.