Gay Marriage to Alfred: Your Thoughts

am i reading it right that you're against gay marriage cause you personally don't want to get married/aren't down with the whole concept?

well thats kinda mean!

cuz i'm not particularly inspired by gay marriage ?

Ptero, I wasn't saying that gay marriage is as "radical" as Stonewall. You were talking about how effective it is for your student. I don't think either made much of a short-term difference in the lives of most of the contemporary queers, no matter how legendary Stonewall is treated now.

Also, I am totally willing to have Biden play the "give them equal rights but don't call it marriage" game if the alternative is Obama losing the election. I mean, ffs!

yo--i'm not against gay marriage!

i just think it's a lame issue to focus a queer movement around. b/c it doesnt address the actual issues/problems of a majority of queer people. & it also doesnt address the underlying inequality of the whole marriage debate, which is that whether or not you have health care or can immigrate or have visitation rights or whatever shouldn't depend on yr sexuality or who you're sleeping with or if you're sleeping with anyone!

AND i object to it cuz i think it's a fucked up heteronormative, misogynist institution that i honestly dont understand why anyone gay OR straight would want to participate in.

@ to casuistry--naw, i agree with you re: stonewall. wasnt trying to argue, was just kinda typing my thoughts aloud...

"well, not if it goes closer and closer towards redefining the traditional definition of marriage between one man and one woman and, unfortunately, that's where those steps sometimes lead"

Examples please? When and where has this happened?

Well, I still think there might be some things to salvage in that institution. You're not signing up for 1950s marriage, after all!

Plus I'm not sure what issues you're thinking of, but health insurance, hospital visitation rights, and parental rights have been fairly central issues to queers for a while now. Unless you think being queer should automatically mean you don't want kids? I mean, I don't want kids, but I don't think it's because of my queerness -- that just secures that I don't have any "happy accidents".

I just find the word tolerant really offensive, like, I feel like a bad smell is what you tolerate.

blondiegurl143 (1 hour ago) 0 Reply | Spam
ohmygodd.
this country is so fuckked up.
all love is the same.
my lesbian mothers will probably not be able to live to see gay marraige legal across the US. maybe even i wont.
this is so fucking ridiculous.
traditional marriage?
bullshit.

T., did you come here because of the "gay" or because someone mentioned "Zizek"? ;-)

I was really uninterested until then!

Great bit of Zizek upthread for anyone who's interested!

@ i know right (examples): connecticut!

casuistry: i dont think people shouldnt have/want kids, and i think middle class queer couples should certainly have the right to adopt kids. which is an issue that i actually feel slightly more mobilized by than gay marriage.

but i think health care, hospital visitation rights, parental rights, immigration rights, etc, shouldnt have anything to do with who youre sleeping with. a 20 yr old living with his older mother has just as much a right to all those things, in my mind, as a queer couple. a woman living in an apt with 3 friends who wants to raise a baby there should have just as much a right as a queer couple. or a straight couple.

i think marriage as the inevitable goal of all relationships limits our imaginations to other possibilities, other forms of kinship. & in poorer communities, i think those 'other' forms of kinship are, by necessity, much more common.

Your examples maybe don't make sense? A 20yo does have visitation rights to his mother? A single woman who has a baby doesn't have anyone else who needs legal authority over decisions in the baby's life?

You're also acting as if marriage rights impede other types of relationships, the way some people think gay marriage somehow impedes straight marriage, even though there's no sane way it would.

I think this is all getting a bit pointlessly idealistic, and to a point, ptero, you're right. But maybe gay people don't all share your dream of queer otherness, maybe they just want everyone to start out on the same page. I mean, its gays who want this, not really anybody else, do you not think that undermines your implication that this is about appeasing conservative white middle class straight people? I mean, they're pretty much the ones saying no, aren't they? Or maybe it's just that there's a lot of middle class white gay people now who don't want to be so different from their friends. I mean, I don't think that we're all falling over ourselves to keep it queer, most people just want to keep their head down and get by and not really worry about redefining or subverting or whatever all the time. Like, I'm pretty whatevs about the whole thing, though, mainly because I think weddings are pretty naff.

I mean I don't disagree with the things you're for, I just disagree with the things you're against. If that makes sense.

Also I think my point is that straight people also engage in relationships that aren't "marriage". Like, plenty of them do. Perhaps the same proportion as queer people who do?

a 20yo taking care of his mother does not have the same benefits as a married couple if he wants to put her on his health insurance. or if he is american and trying to have her immigrate to live with him.

a single woman cannot in many states adopt a baby, right? which is the same battle that queer couples are facing, right? cuz a lesbian couple can certainly HAVE a child, wherever they're living.

i don't think marriage rights impede other rights, which is why i am for gay marriage. but i think the idea we have that the ultimate (successful) end to any relationship is marriage limits the ability of people to imagine alternatives. ask any 8 yr old what they want to do when they're older.

& i also object more to the 'queer movement' focusing on gay marriage than i do to gay marriage as an issue.... cuz i think it reinforces this idea of gay ppl as 'just like straight people' & very mainstream & etc. & again, that mode of activism just doesnt resonate with me very much.

x post x 4 or so

ptero's argument is weird, its not like its forcing ppl to enter into this 'heteronormative tradition,' its giving ppl the option

isnt this the equivalent of arguing that bcuz white school taught eurocentric history black students would be smarter not to try to integrate white schools in the first place? like theres certainly something legitimate to it but for christs' sake lets at least get ppl over the straight-up ban on it so they have the OPTION before arguing that it might be smart to forgo it after all

naw, i think it's a movement led by gay people!!! just like mainstream 1970s feminism was run by women! but they're still just not movements i feel particularly inspired by. i mean, by all means, pass gay marriage. but i don't want that to be the end of queer activism.

I dropped by for the Zizek. Hi peeps!

(Also, I'm a straight dude who is married and loves being married and thinks anyone who wants to be married should be allowed. Cause like - it's pretty cool and makes me happy.)

which is the same battle that queer couples are facing, right?

No, that's not, although it's a different problem. My friend had a baby (gave birth to it); her partner (other mommy!) has no legal rights over that baby. THAT is the problem. So if the baby is sick and birth-mommy is out of town, other-mommy has no rights; if birth-mommy dies, problems might ensue with other-mommy's rights to be mommy; if other-mommy gets health insurance, she might not be able to cover her baby on it; etc.

which is the same problems that unmarried straight woman would face, right? when she leaves town lovely roommate surrogate parents have no rights. b/c we can only imagine child rearing occurring within some sorta partner-union.

Sounds like a conservative move to me

Also, let's put it another way: I think your sense of "straight people" is weirdly prejudiced. Straight people are not homogeneous. To be "just like straight people" means to have the legally and socially recognized right to be yourself. I mean it's more complicated that that, of course, but it's really hard, in 2008, to see straight people as inherently heteronormative -- even if some are, maybe most!

Yes, I'm not disagreeing with you that there shouldn't be other types of coparenting arrangements! But gay marriage does seem like it would do a lot of good for a lot of people, even if it is by no means a cure-all.

AND i object to it cuz i think it's a fucked up heteronormative, misogynist institution that i honestly dont understand why anyone gay OR straight would want to participate in.

:(

That sounds like a failure of imagination to me.

Ptero, I swear I'm not having a go, so just tell me if there's a tiny kernel of truth in this. You're like 24 right? If so, then three years older than me. And I always feel like my generation, was pretty post-gay, like it's not really a thing y'know? I never really worried about it in school or anything, it wasn't some angsty burden and I wasn't the only one. And I grew up in a small, rural, farming town in Ireland at the exact age where I was from the last generation who remembers Ireland pre-boom years. But like, it seems like all that Stonewall shit is a bit whatevs too, I mean, I don't really care about that narrative or see it as something I fit into and it's because, mainly what defines your version of queerness is, well, marginalisation, it becomes a sub-culture, a minority, but you know, its not really defined the way other subcultures are and you know, we're more everywhere. But basically what I'm getting is, like you've missed our '68 or '89 or whenever, I just feel like this definition of queerness is really dated now, and not really relevant.

My posts are really illegible tonight.

i don't think straight people are all heteronormative; i think the idea of MARRIAGE is heteronormative, and therefore is a 'safe' right to argue for with straight people cuz it's very easy for them to be like, "oh they're just like us, mainstream normal straight people!"

of course a lot of straight people don't fit into that mold... but i think that's the political environment in which the argument for gay marriage is made (i.e. from joe biden). which is also why someone like biden can argue for rights w/o marriage. "of course they deserve what we have! who wouldnt want that! but dont forget theyre still kinda freaks."

@ i know right: i think that i am arguing for queerness in a context that is not dated, and is also not limited to queers. i guess i didnt make that really clear. but i think our generation has the potential to choose NOT to participate in institutions that are oppressive. and part of that movement is antiracist and part is feminist and part is queer. & it feels to me like giving in (symbolically) & accepting all the BS that was handed to you as a kid, whether youre straight or not, to get married. & queer people especially are given the clear choice to reject that in a way that often straight people are not.

yep, I have to agree with ptero here. Even if the waning otherness of gay and lesbian as places in social space, and the dawning of a homo-normativity (or what gets called homonationalism by Jasbir Puar) means that increasingly young same-sexors have more options, that is cool and a good thing, but I don't want having a critical relationship to mainstream society to become thereby "dated". Let's not lose the minoritarian self-awareness in a baby/bathwater switcheroo.

I really didn't say that, I'm pretty sure what I said was mainly summed up by the rest of your post though! ; )

In fact I find it a vaguely offensive and dated concept to imply that my sexuality needs to be an impetus. Its this thing where you need to piggy back onto some minority card to be allowed to be radical about things, like if I was straight my voice on this wouldn't be as relevant somehow, and that's pretty fucked.

I wish the queer mission weren't to pat ourselves on the back for being so awesomely minoritarian, but rather were to make people who assume they are in the majority realize that they too are minoritarian.

Also you could draw up an argument along the lines of: How can you have an informed critical relationship to a social institution, such as marriage, without entering into it and seeing how it functions? Who's the colonialist in that context, eh?

Or: Rejection of a social institution isn't much of a critical response, now, is it? I mean, you're arguing that queers shouldn't engage in the evolution of the institution, wtf?

i dont think that is the queer mission & i dont think that's what i'm arguing. i like queerness as a concept--in opposition to heteronormativity--and i dont think thats limited to people who identify as gay. i think it's about opening up the options that people can imagine--whatever their sexuality, whatever their preference. & then making sure that those options are legally protected.

gay marriage, in that sense, is (to me) a conservative ideal, as most marriage is a conservative ideal. it's a right that i think should be protected & fought for but not one that inspires me in the least.

and i think that sexuality CAN BE and IS for many people the impetus to engage in that struggle or that lifestyle or that imagining or uh whatever.

Also, let's put it another way: I think your sense of "straight people" is weirdly prejudiced. Straight people are not homogeneous. To be "just like straight people" means to have the legally and socially recognized right to be yourself. I mean it's more complicated that that, of course, but it's really hard, in 2008, to see straight people as inherently heteronormative -- even if some are, maybe most!

― Casuistry, Friday, October 10, 2008 8:26 PM (28 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

this is what i was trying to say

ok, so maybe we do disagree cuz i believe that rejection of a social institution is totally a critical response!!!

& i also believe that conflating "being just like straight people" and "having the legally and socially recognized right to be yourself" is seriously problematic!

i think considering the number of gay people who wish to be married, its really hard to ascribe 'heteronormative' to it any more tbh.

its like opposing marriage on feminist grounds bcuz a ring used to symbolize ownership

XXXP, pterodactyl, aren't you stigmatizing marriage as a conservative convention? i see it more as value neutral - it can be a radical relationship or a heteronormative relationship. Part of the gay marriage argument for me (as a straight male) is not just about opening it up to non-heterosexuals, but opening it up to a variety of challenges and new meanings. I don't consider my marriage a standard patriarchal relationship (and I don't think my wife does either). Gay marriage isn't just about "giving permission" to homosexuals to marry. It's about suggesting a new dynamic in what could be generally considered a conservative institute.

+ obviously I recognize that as a married, straight male I have a stake in this position.

xp exactly

mordy, that argument is why, in the end, i am for gay marriage. but i think that in the vast majority of cases, marriage is not about suggesting or creating any kind of new dynamic.

also i have trouble with the idea of marriage as a radical relationship--state sanctioned radicalism ? particularly in the current environment where anyone getting married knows that it is a state-sanctioned right that is ACTIVELY DENIED to other groups of people. including but perhaps not limited to the gays.

Well, marriage isn't historically a state sanctioned institute. It is now, but marriages have existed in radical contexts. Certain gnostic anti-establishment traditions for example have marriages, etc. (Not to derail the conversation.) I don't think we disagree tho - I have trouble with the same thing. And certainly it's problematic when you are married and deny others the right. I don't know if my contributing to defeating Prop 8 is just a way of alleviating my guilt over that problem, or in fact an appropriate way to validate my own marriage. Obv it's something on my mind.

See I have no problem with institutions. I don't see them as something that needs to be, I dunno, railed against, so much as used. Marriage is sortof a contract, on a legal level it really is just about establishing a position in which certain terms and rights become applicable, but it is used to become a declaration of love a very personal thing and a very beautiful thing and is sortof radical when you think about how it subverts this legal institution with private narratives. I don't really see a problem with this really. The same thing for really all institutions, so long as we're free to reject their terms, and really, nobody's forcing you and your gal-pal to get hitched.

and is sortof radical when you think about how it subverts this legal institution with private narratives.

I really like this idea.

i want to know/understand what exactly the grounds are that ppl should be pushing, in terms of federal action/large picture politics, that isn't marriage. whats the better pathway? sullivan's 'politics of homosexuality' made a pretty strong argument i think for marriage being the central platform for the wide view

xpost

You would, breeder! ; )