I’ve been reading a recently published book looking at opposition to same-sex marriage from “queer” political activists and academics, The Marrying Kind? Debating Same-Sex Marriage within the Lesbian and Gay Movement. The book is a collection of analytical pieces that let LGBT and “queer” opponents of “heteronormality” speak for themselves, which exposes the weakness inherent in much of their worldview.
It’s not that all of the criticism of marriage voiced here lacks merit; it’s just that the typical solution — more leftism; subsuming the LGBT/queer movements within what’s seen as a more important push for broader “social justice” and leftwing social transformation, is so utterly predicable. Dig through the buzzwords and what you end up with is an agenda for bigger government to direct economic redistribution to those deemed more deserving (or more politically useful).
But primarily the focus here is on “Queer scholars and activists [who] have leveled harsh critiques against the movement’s supposed tendency toward assimilationist goals and strategies, with the goal of legal same-sex marriage often singled out as a prime example of the broader tendency.”
Along those lines, I was happy to see IGF mentioned, if only within quotes from a critical academic. In the introduction, editors Mary Bernstein and Verta Taylor write that
One of the most vocal queer opponents of same-sex marriage, who represents what we term the “homonormative critique,” is Lisa Duggan. … [In an essay from 2002] Duggan argues that for LGBT organizations like IGF, “Marriage is a strategy for privatizing gay politics and culture for the new neoliberal world order.”
Forgotten these day, or simply denied, is how IGF and others often mislabeled “gay conservatives” were making the case for marriage equality over a decade ago, before the mainstream LGBT progressives came onboard. So it’s good to have “queer” radicals reminding us of that.
Another chapter contains interview excerpts representing various ethnic and class perspectives, in which “a thirty-one-year old Asian-American middle-class lesbian” is quoted saying:
They’re just, like, highly normative kinds of things that they want to do. … I understand that some lesbians want to go to some country club to play with their kids or have their membership, I don’t, it’s like they don’t get, they are not really interested in changing, in social change. I think they are really interested in kind of like, making us more like kind of heterosexual middle-class people, also white.”
You get the drift.
This book provides more evidence of the reality of LGBT academia that Bruce Bawer exposes in articles and in his most recent book, The Victims Revolution: The Rise of Identity Studies and the Closing of the Liberal Mind, also highly recommended.
In fact, The Victims Revolution and The Marrying Kind? complement each other quite nicely.
23 Comments for “The Other Gay Marriage Critics”
posted by Houndentenor on
The kind of leftist writings that you are discussing are so obscure that if it weren’t for conservative commentators, none of us would ever have heard of any of it. That’s how marginalized such “scholars” are in our culture. I’m willing to bet that at least half the subscribers of “queer studies” and similar publications are right-wingers looking to quote mine from them to make it sound as if any of them speak for the majority of gay people. Yes, I’ve heard these ideas. Yawn, indeed. If you don’t want to get married, you shouldn’t. It’s really not for everyone. Those who do should be able to do so. I think that’s rather obvious to all but the far fringe who no one really listens to anyway, except interns at Fox News and talk radio looking for something to tar the rest of the gay world with. The same goes for feminists, minorities and other groups. Most people just want to live their lives just like everyone else. That’s the dirty little secret of homosexuality. Other than the sex, we’re not really any more interesting than anyone else. As straight people figure that out we become less scary and less profitable for right-wing hatemongers. Don’t worry, they’ll find some new group to turn into the bogey-man. They always do.
posted by Doug on
If I am to be tarred by the far leftist writings you quote, it’s only fair that the right be tarred with the likes of Fred Phelps et. al. What’s good for the goose. . . . .
posted by Jorge on
The kind of leftist writings that you are discussing are so obscure that if it weren’t for conservative commentators, none of us would ever have heard of any of it.
College and graduate school–that is, academia. That’s about it.
Those are very formative years and the source of a lot of the rank-and-file of progressive political activism. I don’t agree with everything I read back then, but a good deal of it still holds weight for me.
posted by Tom Scharbach on
Forgotten these day, or simply denied, is how IGF and others often mislabeled “gay conservatives” were making the case for marriage equality over a decade ago, before the mainstream LGBT progressives came onboard.
I think that you are largely right in arguing that the early leaders of the LGBT fight (Harvey Milk comes to mind) didn’t place much importance on marriage, and that the work of conservative thinkers like Jon Rauch was seminal in turning our movement toward marriage as a goal.
I know that Jon Rauch’s work from 1996-2004 was critical to my own development in thinking, turning me toward marriage equality and turning me off on civil unions as a potential compromise. I’ve never looked back. He had great influence on my thinking.
I think that the argument for marriage struck a chord in the gays and lesbians who John Rechy called “the quiet ones” — gays and lesbians living “normal” lives outside the gay ghettos — and brought them into the fight.
And when “the quiet ones” joined the fight, the shift toward marriage equality as the primary goal of our struggle was marked.
“The quiet ones” were largely gays and lesbians raised in the 1950’s and 1960’s, in middle class homes, and brought the political moderation of the middle class with them into the movement.
As the goal moved toward marriage, marriage equality began to take hold in the Democratic Party. It did not take hold in the Republican Party, however, which is odd, when you think about it.
I don’t know why Jon Rauch’s thinking got traction among left-aligned gays and lesbians and spurred them into action in the Democratic Party, but did not seem to get similar traction (or action) among right-aligned gays and lesbians in the Republican Party.
Perhaps you, Jared and Another Steve could tell us why this happened. I understand the Democratic side of the equation, but I’ve never understood the Republican side of the equation.
posted by Houndentenor on
The reason the early activists are so outside the mainstream is that those are the only people who would go on TV or give speeches or march in a parade. The “respectable” gays couldn’t afford to do any of that. They would have lost their jobs. They literally couldn’t afford to be that public about their sexuality. That’s not an accusation, by the way. Simply an acknowledgement of reality. I remember groaning at some of the “representatives” that would appear on Donahue or Oprah in the 1980s to talk about gay issues. But they were the only people they could get. And no at that point we weren’t overly concerned with marriage. I am still stunned that we made this progress on marriage but if you are worried that if your boss finds out you’re gay you’re going to be unemployed, marriage isn’t all that high a priority. There is a progression of these things. Women had to get the right to vote before worrying about other issues that affect them. Yes, the radicals led the movement. There was no one else that would have or could have at that time. We’d still be where we were in the 1950s if they hadn’t.
posted by Jorge on
The progressive considers oppression to be a constant. From here, you can conclude that vanquishing oppression is possible, or that vanquishing oppression is impossible. You can determine that the goal of progressivism should be for the oppressed to become “white”, or for “whiteness” to be eliminated. I believe vanquishing oppression is impossible, and that for this reason there will always be a division between those who want to be white and those who want to be black, yet we will ever work in concert, neither side the victor.
I think that the argument for marriage struck a chord in the gays and lesbians who John Rechy called “the quiet ones” — gays and lesbians living “normal” lives outside the gay ghettos — and brought them into the fight.
…
I don’t know why Jon Rauch’s thinking got traction among left-aligned gays and lesbians and spurred them into action in the Democratic Party, but did not seem to get similar traction (or action) among right-aligned gays and lesbians in the Republican Party.
I don’t understand why very well myself, having only really read any particular intellectual argument only a few times, and I’m not the best student of gay history. I usually draw my first inspiration from other thinkers and try to apply them to gay rights issues, rather than taking what gay rights thinkers say and trying to apply it to politics as a whole. In my case it lead to a rather static worldview, and I developed mine at a time when the prevailing thinking among those I respected was that gay couples should be accorded respect and deferrence but we should try to look for another word than marriage to describe them. To me, that was marriage.
My question is, what has been the relationship between the “quiet ones” and everyone else? Meaning those who are activists, whether part-time or full-time, and the more visible and flamboyant members of the queer community, activist or not.
It seems to me that for a very long time, the goal of the moment has been the same for everyone, even when the methods and worldview have been different. The 1969 Stonewall Riots and Frank Kameny’s activism for equal treatment of government employees benefited two sides that both fought the same monster. I’m pretty sure AIDS decimated closeted gay men just as harshly as openly gay men. My opinion of the gay rights movement today is that it represents all subcultures of the gay (and GLBT) community astonishingly well. I see clear signs that those who speak the loudest are not the only ones who have influence. I would not know of any previous time when the activists have not similarly done the bidding of all its constituents simultaneously.
With a culture created that finally began to openly acknowledge and tolerate the gay community in all its diversity, I believe that is when marriage became something of a public topic.
posted by Jorge on
I find that I am horrified by the implications of the first part of my post on just about every civil rights issue I care about. Progressives often posit that the two faces of mainstream communities work in tandem to oppress others.
posted by Tom Scharbach on
“I developed mine at a time when the prevailing thinking among those I respected was that gay couples should be accorded respect and deferrence but we should try to look for another word than marriage to describe them.”
In Gay Marriage: Why It Is Good for Gays, Good for Straights, and Good for America, Rauch argues that it is important, culturally and legally, to insist on marriage as the “gold standard” for all couples, straight and gay alike, and that weakening the role of marriage as the “gold standard” weakens our society for a variety of reasons. He argues that insisting that straight couples marry while insisting that gay and lesbian couples not marry sends a cultural message that marriage is not important for anyone. He argues that civil unions (although theoretically equivalent) devalue marriage as the “gold standard”, rather than strengthen it, because civil unions provide a culturally acceptable alternative to marriage.
Something in that simple, logical argument touched me. I was raised in a time and in a culture that put a high value on marriage, as in “If you want to live together, get married. If you have kids, stay married.“. Rauch’s argument spoke to my upbringing (rural, culturally conservative, monogamous) and my core values. I realized that if I valued marriage, and was going to be true to my values, then I could not support civil unions, as appealing as “the civil union compromise” might be politically and legally.
I should note that Rauch has since abandoned the “gold standard” argument and joined with David Blankenhorn to propose “the civil union compromise”, but I don’t think that he was wise to do so. Perhaps the battle for marriage as the “gold standard” has already been lost, given the relatively low numbers of straights who are marrying these days, so it may not make a practical difference. But I think that marriage as the “gold standard” is important, and I am committed to doing what I can to see that it is upheld, regardless of Rauch’s change of mind on that issue.
Which brings me to another oddity.
The “Queer Studies” argument against the hetero-normative model, although arguably grounded in the idea that gay and lesbian culture is inherently different than straight culture, and that gays and lesbians will lose something important if we assimilate by adopting marriage as the “gold standard” for our own relationships, seems to me to be closely related to the “free love” movement of the 1960’s and 1970’s, which also argued against the hetero-normative model in a variety of ways for a variety of reasons, not the least of which was that the hetero-normative model assigns rather rigid gender roles. The two seem to me to be related, and in fact, the “Queer studies” movement may be a subset of the “free love” movement, the latter of which is the antithesis of social conservatism.
The oddity in this is that it is primarily libertarian-leaning conservatives who made the argument for the hetero-normative model, not social conservatives. The idea of marriage as “gold standard” is much more closely allied with social conservative values than with libertarian values, it seems to me, and yet the “gold standard” argument came from a part of the conservative movement that would seem to be much more closely aligned with a “live and let live” cultural philosophy.
I can’t explain that oddity, any more than I can explain why marriage as “gold standard” took hold among left-leaning gays and lesbians, but didn’t seem to do so among right-leaning gays and lesbians. The oddity exists, though — of that I’m sure.
posted by Jorge on
In Gay Marriage: Why It Is Good for Gays, Good for Straights, and Good for America, Rauch argues that it is important, culturally and legally, to insist on marriage as the “gold standard” for all couples, straight and gay alike, and that weakening the role of marriage as the “gold standard” weakens our society for a variety of reasons.
It’s a fair argument, but I think I’m neutral toward it. I see marriage more strongly as a religious or traditional institution. I don’t like “marriage-lite”, but nobody has to stand for their relationship to be described as marriage-lite if they do not want to. Even I’m not that socially conservative that I think family and marriage will fall apart unless everyone agrees on what they are and what to call them, which is where I think Rauch’s argument goes deep into Rick Santorum territory (which I do not mean as an insult) and I go into pick-and-choose Cafeteria Catholic territory. I think the function is what counts.
posted by Jorge on
The “Queer Studies” argument against the hetero-normative model…
I agree with everything you wrote here.
The oddity in this is that it is primarily libertarian-leaning conservatives who made the argument for the hetero-normative model, not social conservatives.
This is something I am not familiar with. But I do NOT think the libertarianism you are talking about is related to the descendants of the free love movement. I think it is much more related to the type of right-wing libertarianism that has as its inspiration people like Ayn Rand and the founding fathers, whom other right-wingers find at least some favor with. It is a laisseiz-faire libertarianism rather than a “we’re all equal” libertarianism. If you take Ron Paul’s position on gay marriage, it is not that big a leap between mildly disapproving of government interference on other people’s marriages to asking for marriage for one’s own personal self-interest and thinking what you’re doing is asking the government to butt out.
I imagine socially conservative gays are a little more likely than libertarian gays to accept unjust social and government decisions and live with them.
posted by Houndentenor on
You’re a better student of gay history than you think.
posted by Jorge on
Thank you. Credit this website.
posted by Kosh III on
“Other than the sex, we’re not really any more interesting than anyone else.”
But..but…but…we DO have fabulously landscaped yards LOL
well, at least in our neighborhood.
posted by Houndentenor on
Sometimes. Just as often gay men could use those Queer Eye guys to show up and help them decorate and learn to dress, get a decent haircut, etc.
posted by Jorge on
Never!
I am perfectly happy with my simple leather bracelets and elegant steel bangles from JC Penney. No one compliments me on the rainbow ones, though.
posted by Kosh III on
So true. Though I do the fabulous landscaping, I often quip that I missed out on the gay gene for style and color. For years my husband has picked out my work attire because I’m a jeans and tshirt fellow who thinks dressing up means matching sock colors. And when we redecorated post-flood I got to pick out my office desk but he did the rest–to great effect.
LOL
posted by Kosh III on
“I think that you are largely right in arguing that the early leaders of the LGBT fight (Harvey Milk comes to mind) didn’t place much importance on marriage, ”
Yes, they were concerned about jobs, housing and the like but IIRC the focus became marriage, not because of the writings of some obscure somebody but because Hawai’i forced the issue, then Vermont, then the reich-wingers got their knickers in a knot and made opposition to marriage equality a major focus.
posted by TomJeffersonIII on
Early proponents (19th century) of gay rights did certainly discuss the idea of same-sex marriage. Do not pretend that someone the ‘gay conservative’ or the ‘gay conservative that likes to smoke pot’ (aka libertarian) somehow invented the idea that gay people should fight for equal right in civil marriage.
Yet, at the time their was very little interest in entertaining any sort of gay rights. The topic of human sexuality was itself still largely taboo. What did exist was often oppressed by both mainstream liberal and conservative governments as well as the fascists and the communist.
Addressing the anti-gay criminal laws and supporting sexual science took priority and was about the only thing that supporters were willing to entertain.
After WW2, concerns expanded into equal opportunity in such areas as employment and housing. In America, a handful of gay couples tried to get married in the early 1970s but they were quickly shot down by the state and federal courts.
Then the gay rights movement had to focus lots of energy on fighting Anita Bryant (and the rest of the ‘New Right’) and then came the AIDS-HIV pandemic….
posted by Don on
I don’t think enough attention is paid to the time that thinking emerged. Marriage was not a good thing unless you were the husband. Wives were property, could not own their own property, legally must submit to sex if they didn’t want it. it wasn’t a good institution for half of those in it.
Feminists were on the forefront of changing those ideas. What it meant to be a man, or a woman. it wasn’t just “who did dishes” in terms of rigid sex roles. During that period, gay men (and lesbians) played rigid sex roles. Reach “City of Night” and you’ll see what the 50s, 60s and eventually 70s wrought. By the late 60s and early 70s, gays were breaking out of the notion that we had to play the “woman or the man” in our relationships. It was a radical idea to have “two men” or “two women” are in this relationship in terms of gender roles. By the 1980s, radical feminist thought of the 50s and 60s was mainstreaming. Working Girl came out in 1988. It was not laughable as a premise. It was reaffirming that women can do for themselves. Tootsie was 1982. A man living as a woman to get by found out it sucks.
Social conservatives have such a hard time with marriage because they skipped that step. They still have rigid gender roles. And they find it horrifying that anyone wouldn’t. One once said to me “how can you have a marriage if there is more than one man? who decides things?” Compromise was anathema. They have presidents and vice presidents in their households. And, for them, it’s the only way marriage works. God picked the head of the household by giving him a penis. This is precisely why they think we are “destroying what marriage is” and most liberals/moderates are baffled by the statement.
But because feminism has changed the definition to allow equality, couples built on compromise and shared responsibility for how they themselves choose to divide marital/household responsibilities, most people don’t get why gay marriage shouldn’t be allowed.
I also think this is why social conservatives shun gay marriage and libertarians do not. SoCons define tasks by gender. Libertarians by who is best suited for the job. This is why they have picked the sides they have.
posted by Aubrey Haltom on
I think you’ve articulated one of the central reasons behind opposition to marriage equality, Don. That “marriage equality” is an expression of gender equality as well.
Though I live in Boston (with the hubby and kid) – our families live in Missouri, Tennessee, Texas (and others, but you get the idea…).
Since our son was born, I’ve marveled at the importance of gender, in general, in this country (even in ‘liberal Boston’).
However, when I visit the Midwest and South, and I’m around relatives and friends who are of a more evangelical christian persuasion (e.g., southern baptist) – I am constantly amazed at how oppressive gender can be in these communities.
I could even go so far as to describe what I see in these communities as a desperate need for such rigid gender roles.
Marriage equality – where gender does not predetermine the pairing, nor the functional roles within the relationship – threatens the fundamentals for so many people in these communities.
And these fundamentals are considered as “God-given”, not man-made.
posted by JohnInCA on
A decade and a month ago Lawrence v. Texas was ruled on by the Supreme Court. A few months later Goodridge v. Department of Public Health was decided by the Massachusetts Supreme Court.
Wanna know whose legal teams were involved? GLAD and LAMBDA. So… even if your statement, that gay conservatives were on the gay marriage bandwagon before it was a bandwagon, is true… just where did it get you? It was still the progressives, who you deride so gleefully, that got it done.
posted by Wilberforce on
Talk about buzzwords. How quick you are with ‘bigger government’ and ‘redistributing income’, although what either of your obsessions have to do with gay marriage is unclear.
And why harp on the far left? What have they to do with this topic?
For me, the issue is that marriage has replaced enda and stopping hiv. Those should be the real focus.
But it’s no wonder that you’re on board with it. The idea of getting a marriage tax cut must have you all wet.
posted by Sandhorse on
This topic was discussed over at BTB. I say here, what I said there.
Genuine tolerance flows from grace. Tolerance mandated through policy, on the other hand, is simply compliance.
With that in mind, the request for tolerance by O.S.Card, and now Bart Hinkle, is even more superficial. They do not tolerate us at all; not before and not now. They simply must comply with current policy. If that policy did not exist, or would ever be overturned, rest assured they would not show us the grace (i.e. tolerance) they so adamantly demand from us. They are now, unfortunately for them, at our mercy and they know it. Thus the ‘requests’ for tolerance ensue.
What’s worse is they are not requests, or even demands. No, we’re now being told we are obligated to tolerate. Not because they showed us tolerance, but because we won via policy. So, they now expect us to allow them to keep discriminating against us out of the kindness of our hearts. And not just tolerate their beliefs, no, we are supposed to tolerate their long standing intolerance.
When it comes to ‘law of the land’ the law should apply to everyone or it shouldn’t be applied at all. Otherwise we could plaster our governments with laws that only apply to other people. They are the easiest to pass.
If “Masterpiece Cakeshop” wants to make a statement by refusing services to a gay couple; then the gay owned flower shop down the road can refuse services to a Christian couple. The knife must cut both ways. If such a policy is applied evenhandedly, I actually don’t have a problem with it; though I think it would breed anarchy. However, if laws are in place barring discrimination, then that too needs to be applied evenhandedly.
Some want to conflate this as being some sort of infringement on the business owners ‘free exercise’ of religion.
From a Christian standpoint, I don’t believe refusal of services to be an exercise of faith. If that were the case, then the Priest and the Levite would have been the heroes of the Good Samaritan story. Thus, the requirement to offer services to all when that service is public, does not contravene their practice of faith.
Personally, I think refusal of services is more of an expression of hypocrisy then faith. Unless they can demonstrate that they have not offered services to previously married couples, interracial couples, people of a different faith, people who are ‘living in sin’, etc.; then their moral ground is fractured. Never mind the fact that they would eliminate at least 75% of their customer base in the process. So it goes without saying their ‘moral indignation’ only extends as far as their wallet will allow. But, discriminating against 5% of the population has minimal impact on the bottom line, and still allows you to flaunt that badge of (self)righteousness on your lapel.
At the end of the day, I hope, (as a gay community) we can find it in ourselves to offer grace and tolerance by not ‘enforce’ the policy of ‘compulsory tolerance’. If, for no other reason then to show them the grace they never showed us.
But, having said that, grace given upon demand or expectation, is no grace at all.