The short answer to your question is:
a whole lot of conservatives.
Among marriages short and long, in their course exactly
two people on the planet have had a direct impact on the strength and sanctity of those joinings. Every single day spouses work together diligently to have a vital, honest, loving relationship and they're the only ones who can make that happen or keep it from happening -- period. The idea that anyone else’s marriage affects one's own is fairly ridiculous for marriage is about a couple's being fully invested in honoring their own marital vows.
Ultimately this isn’t about one's theology, it’s about the fading fine art of minding your own business. It’s about honoring Marriage as an
institution (if one is married) by realizing that one is not a local corporate franchise, one is a unique (if you will) “mom and pop” organization expressing what love looks like in the precisely beautiful, once-in-History union of which one is a part.
Even if one believes that same-sex marriage is sinful or immoral (which is one's right), claiming that it does any sort of residual collateral damage to one or one's spouse says more about the fragility of one's relationship than it does about the LGBT community as a viable threat. For all the public discourse about what a “Biblical Marriage” is, the Scriptures give a lot less instruction on how to be married, than they do about how to be a loving, decent, compassionate person
within or
without it. Yet even when the text speaks directly on matrimony itself, it does so with expectation that married people will work out those words in the confines of their own covenant relationship. It never implies implicitly or openly that we get to police other people or they us. Interestingly, the same folks claiming that gay people are damaging Marriage, aren’t nearly as vocal about the rampant infidelity, abuse, and divorce out there in so many heterosexual marriages. In those cases, they don’t view those people as a threat and are quite able to separate themselves from the greater married world when it suits them.
It comes down to
attention. Consider the example of an individual who engages a personal trainer and arrives at the gym for their first session worried about being embarrassed in front of other more fit, more experienced people in the gym. Such concerns are misplaced for when those other folks are on the floor, they are so focused on what they’re doing and working so hard, they don’t have the time or energy to be worrying and thinking about "
you."
An acquaintance recently lamented the fact that “homosexuals are tearing apart the family unit”. I wonder whose “family unit” he was referring to. I know it isn’t mine. My family unit is pretty spectacular and secure because it exists independently of those outside my house, regardless of sexual orientation or any other possible variable. I have authority and direct influence regarding only one family unit on the planet. That’s how this life works.
As a father, my own
dad-ness is not affected by how other fathers parent their children; my
son-ness not impacted by the other children out there in the world. Likewise, as friend, sibling, co-worker and in every other role I get to play here, I and those I am in relationship with work out the specific sacredness that exists there.
The difficult pill for so many Christians to swallow is this: Gay people have
families; caring, beautiful, flawed, loving ones. They daily navigate complicated relationships with siblings, parents, children, and yes even spouses (and in-laws). They live lives together in deep community marked by all the compassion, frustration, intimacy, laughter, heartache, and richness that you share with your own family.
If one can’t admit and respect that, and if one finds oneself somehow threatened by any other person’s pursuit of happiness or expression of family, that’s likely a "
you" problem. There’s something incredibly troublesome when we as people of faith require others to believe what we believe, or worse, when we act as if their refusal to believe what we believe or practice what we practice in any way devalues our faith experience.
Straight Christians, when they married didn’t make those flowery vows to all married people, before or since. They didn’t profess their undying love and commitment to an institution. They didn’t expectantly join the ranks of a club or fraternity or corporation.
One did not get married to marriage. One pledged to a
person; promising to love one's spouse as faithfully and passionately and completely as one could for the rest of one's life. That’s all one is obligated, expected, and qualified to do.
The bottom line: If one's marriage is adversely affected by anyone else’s marriage (straight or gay), one probably doesn't have a very good marriage.
That should be cause for great worry.
Outside of one's spouse, the only person who can really threaten one's marriage, is oneself.
