Yes, I said it. I am against it. And I am against it to the point in which I think you should be too. It’s bad. Don’t get me wrong, I think that the recent rulings in Iowa, Vermont and even here in DC are all good things as far as finally recognizing individual rights, and rights for those who are in a minority. Yet at the same time, we as a gay community are walking the balance of a very thin line when it comes to all of this.
Here’s the thing I want to get out of the way right off the bat: I am not saying that there should not be equal rights for gay couples. I think there should be. I think gay couples should demand and be entitled to the same legal benefits as heterosexual couples. However, within the term “heterosexual” lies the problem with gay marriage. Not only is marriage itself a religious institution that is legally recognized in a country that has both freedom of religion and separation of church and state, but marriage is also a heteronormative institution in which the gay community is assimilating itself into in order to fit standards that people have fought and died for so that the community does not, in fact, have to conform to those standards. Yes that’s a long sentence, but bear with me.
Perhaps my problem is not necessarily with gay marriage per se, but marriage itself. Why? Why do we need this? More importantly, why does the gay community need it? We fought for years, and are still currently fighting, for the opportunity to remain outside of the sexual “norm,” to be able to allow ourselves to spill over the levees of the binary so that what, we can then conform to it? So that we can allow our rights to be dictated to us by those very people who have done the oppressing for so long? So that we can appear to be a little bit more “normal” in the eyes of those who would rather not allow themselves to come down to our level of culture, so that instead we have to “raise” ourselves up to theirs? So that conservatives can have a little bit more reason to be more comfortable around us? So that now we really can’t go to hell if even some form of god views our union as holy? I mean really, what is the reason?
The problem with all of this is that we are making ourselves more relatable to them. And perhaps this is the little angry teenager inside me saying this, but why do we have to? The problem with majorities in general is that they are rarely forced to experience anything other than what they consider acceptable, so instead of embracing new ideas they expect everyone else who is not in the said majority to conform to theirs. And here are us gays, pride flags and all, sashaying our way right into heteronormative culture, calling it “groundbreaking.” It’s not groundbreaking, it’s assimilation.
Also, let me be very clear: I am not at all opposed to being in a long term relationship with one person. If that’s what makes you happy, you should be allowed to do so and to celebrate that commitment with those you hold most dear to you. But what about those people who don’t want that? What about those people who are in committed relationships, but who have extra partners, both when their significant others know about it and not? What about those who operate outside traditional relationship standards? Should their commitments on whatever level not be recognized also? Are their relationships not also valid? Just because they might not be dressed in white and throwing rice doesn’t mean that the commitment to their “other” isn’t just as strong as the one dressed up in fluff and flowers. And for those who are in non-traditional relationships, y’all need to speak up and stop being afraid to be seen. Part of the stigma that is associated with the idea of non-traditional relationships is because those in them still feel the internal social shame that comes along with it. I mean, if y’all are gay, you are already dealing with a lot of internal social shame, so you might as well just get it all out on the table.
Ok, but so then what? What happens when gay marriage is totally accepted across the country? What do we have left to fight for? We as a community have pushed all of our effort into having our relationships be able to be seen just like everyone else. Is that really the end of discrimination for the gays? Teens are still committing suicide, people are still being killed for sucking cock in a bathroom in Nebraska, trannies are still denied employment in most of the country, I don’t really see how gay marriage is Mr. Clean’s Magic Eraser to all of this. The only thing it solves is the gay communities’ ability to differentiate themselves from the standard, when in fact it is the standard itself that needs to be taken into question. It is the standard of heteronormativity that needs to be broken. It is the standard of the gender binary that needs to be broken. It is the standard of “male” and “female” roles that needs to be broken. It is the standard of what is viewed as “right” and “wrong” from a morally religious and puritanical background that needs to be broken. We in the gay community pride (no pun intended) ourselves on being diverse and accepting to those who are misfits and outlaws in the normative society. Yet we strive to be apart of that. Perhaps it is the plight of any minority to want what the majority has, but when what the majority does have does not fit our standards of what we stand for, the majority has to be rejected and something new has to take its place. It is our job as the minority to be ambassadors to our own cause, to not allow the dictatorship of rule overcome who and what we stand for, but through diplomacy (and perhaps sometimes a little civil disobedience) to extend ourselves to those who don’t understand to make them see that the way we chose to live is not wrong, it is just different. And that they need to accept that.
Hey, if you want to get married that is by all means your individual choice, and I personally have no problem with that. If you need your relationship to be validated by those whom you elect to represent you, or if you need a celebration with the people whom you love or if you even just want an excuse to get trashed with the person you’ve chosen to spend a significant part of your life with, I really do totally understand (especially the last part). And I might even be persuaded to believe that if you should so chose that for yourself, that you should have that right to do so. But let’s just say that when that very institution that we so long to be apart of decides to ban us from participating, what do we do? Instead of fighting for recognition of individual rights we instead fight for the right to be part of that institution. We as a community lose the very rights we have fought so long to attain: to be sexually free from that institution. Instead it is the institution’s constraints that we are now striving to be apart of.
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