Gay Marriage to Alfred: Your Thoughts

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

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You would, breeder! ; )

Tsk. I use birth control. The potentiality of progeny != breeding. :P

Birth control is not as effective as homosexuality in preventing pregnancy.

http://www.nerve.com/CS/blogs/scanner/2008/junior.jpg

c'est la vie. so i'm not perfect. :P

folks we got ourselves a nice spectrum here from reformers to radicals, some want to reorient marriage from within, others want no part of it . . .

I think if you're looking for a case for "why rail against institutions?" you could take a peek at the early Deleuze essay "Instincts and Institutions", which makes a pretty portable ideology-critique case against the ways that institutions legitimize themselves as the best/most inevitable/universal endpoint through which to satisfy our natural instincts. Deleuze's point is that institutions hinge their legitimacy on our instincts in order to survive, but our instincts don't require institutional support in order to be satisfied. This makes the "sooner or later you'll get over your sour grapes and join us" line about marriage all the more maddening and symptomatic of the trouble with institutions. I would also point out that your sense that institutions are there for you to be used is probably not unrelated to who you are/where you live/your demographic. I doubt that, say, a Palestinian living in Israel or an African American in the 50s in the USA would have the same feeling that they could 'take or leave' institutions, that institutions were just something to tip one's hat to or not.

The thing is, Deleuze is wrong.

also i have trouble with the idea of marriage as a radical relationship--state sanctioned radicalism ?

I have trouble with the idea of the state as something that is always already in an antagonistic relationship to the people who constitute it -- the situation is clearly more nuanced than that. I have trouble with the word "radicalism" being used interchangeably with something like "awesomeness" -- the Bush administration has been wildly radical.

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.

Do you also reject health insurance, knowing it is actively denied to way more people than gay marriage is?

Anyway this is getting more heated than I really want it to, and I'm not helping. And, I don't disagree with you, but it seems like you're letting your disinterest in marriage as a viable institution to engage in dictate what you think other people should feel is right for them, or how you think society as a whole should go. But you also are ultimately OK with gay marriage. So. La la! It's all fine.

For instance, no one here is making that argument about "sooner or later you'll join us", and it's maybe hard to say that there has been pressure on gay people from the straight world to legalize gay marriage so they could get married and be just like straights already.

What is the "sooner or later you'll join us" argument?

yr being too kind imo.

This makes the "sooner or later you'll get over your sour grapes and join us" line about marriage all the more maddening and symptomatic of the trouble with institutions.

As far as I can tell, this line doesn't plague straight people nearly as much as it did 30 years ago; has the queer movement helped homo-normativize the straight "community"?

Deleuze is right. It's just the wrong Deleuze being quoted. A rhizomatic approach to marriage, ala A Thousand Plateaus, could potentially be very useful. There's no one particular entry point or exit point, but a variety that is always changing. No two heterosexual marriages are the same, and there's no reason to believe that a homosexual marriage would be the same either.

It's always the wrong Deleuze being quoted! Sigh. But that does seem more sensible. That's the fun thing with Deleuze, I guess, you can mine for sensible quotes.

(Also... I am being too kind? Is that... a bad thing? I'm pro-kindness, usually.)

i much prefer marginalizing your enemies

Apropos of something, Deleuze was very interested in a variety of holes. Bataille may be relevant here too... (Sorry! I'm being immature!)

kindness is hot

why is everyone talking about gay people tonight? is it gay week? it's leather weekend in nyc. same thing?