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Gay Marriage: Self-herding Towards Heteronormative Sociability

-- By AjGarcia - 15 Feb 2012

Introduction

The politics of the gay community has shifted tremendously from Lawrence v. Texas in 2003 to today. We’ve transitioned from asking the state to get out of our private lives, to begging for it to enter our public ones. Gay marriage has become the most important issue for the queer community. Yet, I believe marriage equality comes at too high of a cost to be the champion cause we choose to pursue. As Katherine Franke writes, “As lesbigay people are herded into a particular form of sociability—a narrow conception of family—we have lost an interest in, if not now disavow, other forms of sociality that a generation ago we celebrated.” I argue that the gay community needs to resist the temptation to buy into the heteronormativity that marriage stands for, or risk losing the opportunity for a revolution where we could re-define sexuality, relationships, and identity.

The Birth of Queerphobia

As the older generations dies, so dies with it the more typical conception of homophobia—which I define to be the fear of gay people as a class and the rejection of them as individuals. Yet, instead of taking the opportunity to celebrate its death, a new kind of queerphobia has been created that distinguishes between “normal gays” and “pervert ones”—one that despises anything different than the heternormativity of marriage and its pastoral conceptions of sexuality that accompanies it.

Accelerating this transformation of this pervert-fearing monster are gay marriage advocates. LGBT activists have decided that the way to achieve equality is by having the same legal entitlements that would accompany a heterosexual couple. But to become apart of the tradition of heterosexual marriage, requires the acceptance of heternormative definitions of sexuality and normalcy. It requires the gay community to reject the sexual deviancy that once defined it. Instead, we must publish pictures of lesbians in wedding gowns with their dresses held by their three kids and parents. We must ask two handsome, young gay men in tuxedos to kiss in front of city hall. We find gay marriage advocates shouting at the top of their lungs, “Look how normal gay people are!” But do we want that?!

To be corralled and socialized into the heterosexual tradition of marriage requires that we reject the aspects of our community that once made it unique. We sacrifice our cultural identity and ask that we paint it in the bland colors of heterosexuality. Drag queens, club kids, horny queers cruising in alleys, and men giving head in the bushes and behind dumpsters must be put to the side. We must hide our leather and S&M toys and slip on tacky and boring sweater vests that declare our normalcy and fit to be herded into mainstream America. To the front goes the happy couple with three biological children, to the back goes the polyamorous triangle and the queers that don’t like their sex in missionary.

Can We Have Our Wedding Cake and Eat it Too?

Critics of this position might counterargue and say that gay people should have the liberty to marry the person they love, and those other elements of the queer community can be preserved. Marriage after all (aside from religion) is a contract, and those other elements are sociological in nature. In other words, they might claim we can have our cake and eat it too. But I don’t think this is true. At the tip of the tongue when we talk about gay marriage is the desire to be just like a heterosexual couple. When gay people say they want marriage, they want the lifestyle and social capital that comes along with it.

While wanting to legally bind oneself to a monogamous partner “till death to you part,” may be strangely desired by the more masochistic and lemming of individuals, I don’t know what is to be gained by cliff jumping into marriage. For people that would like to live like heterosexuals in their traditional definition of a relationship, they can certainly do that without the marriage certificate. Sure they might want the benefits, but at what costs do those legal privileges come? If gay marriage was to be the central cause of the gay agenda, that would mean the queer-top priority would be the desire to be apart of a tradition that has rejected non-heterosexual definitions of sexuality and relationships.

No, Because Conforming to Heterosexuality Should Not Be Our Principal Cause

I believe what we sacrifice the opportunity for a revolution in the way we conceptualize sexuality, gender identity, and relationships. By accepting heterosexual marriage as “the right way” to live one’s life, we spit on the “perversions” and “weird” behavior that lived alongside us for so long as marginalized conduct. In desperately trying to be “normal,” we implicitly say that heternormative morality is correct and should be desired. We lose the identities, conduct, and sexual behavior that we truly want--to become apart of a tradition that society says we should want. Striving to conform destroys the opportunity to re-define sexuality, sexual appetites, and relationships.

Conclusion

Some LGBT individuals say they don’t like the word “queer” to describe the community because it implies being “odd” and “different.” My response is, so? The oppression of homophobia and the fear of being persecuted for our sexual and gender identity over the last hundred years engendered innovative and creative ways in defining our relationships, sexuality, and self-expression. Are we willing to throw this out the window for the opportunity to be just like miserable heterosexuals. By buying into heternormative marriage, we sacrifice our “queerness” and marginalize it as something weird that should be rejected. Instead, the sexual and gender traditions of our past have shown us an alternative way to express our sexuality and maintain relationships with the people we love. We should respect and embrace our queerdom, because it affords us the opportunity to do what we’d like instead of what heteronormativity says we should like It’s a shame we’re wiling to throw queer perversions that lived alongside gay people for so long under the bus—and agree with their public shaming—for a desperate, harmful, and useless need to “ be normal.”

(998 words)

Professor Moglen,

I'm still working on developing these ideas. Please continue providing feedback on improving this gay marriage piece, and I will keep applying it.

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