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The Trouble with Gay Marriage

By Jim Rinnert

The push for gay marriage diverts the debate for gay rights into a cul-de-sac inhabited by screaming right-wing fundamentalists.
Recently someone asked me what I thought about gay marriage. “I’m against it,” I answered. The goal of gay activists on this issue, I said, should be a recognized civil contract that would give gay and lesbian partnerships rights equal to those enjoyed by married couples.

But my quick and easy answer didn’t quite get to the complex set of feelings and thoughts that the subject has stirred in me. And it certainly didn’t articulate a position that addresses the longings and needs of a great many of my brothers and sisters in queerdom.

So what is it we queer folk want when we seek the rites and rights of marriage? Do we long for a church or deity to sanctify our love for one another? Some do. Do we want inheritance rights and the right of inclusion in decision-making on family matters such as child-rearing and health care, including, ultimately, questions of life and death? Yes, many of us do. Do we want public validation that our relationships are as important and meaningful and tightly bound—and as legal—as those of heterosexuals? Again, some do.

I’m fully in favor of us having all those rights. But it’s in those rites that we run into trouble. The push for gay marriage bothers me in a couple of ways.

On one level, it’s the problem of the conflict between the two fronts of gay activism: gay liberation and gay rights. These two tendencies were pretty much intertwined from the early days of the sexual revolution through most of the ’70s, but by the end of that decade the movement had split. The leather boys, drag queens and bare-chested dykes were at one end of the parade; the political seekers and Dignity members (those craving acceptance by church and state) were at the other. And to gain acceptance, the latter often were all too willing to squelch the exuberance and freedom exhibited by the former.

This divide angered me then and it still does. The push for gay marriage is clothed in the uniform of a fight for equality. And, of course, it is that. But gay marriage strikes me as, first and foremost, just another way to show the straights that we’re the same as them, that we’re as “normal” as the heterosexuals with whom we share the planet and thereby are worthy of acceptance into their clubs. Well, without getting into a discourse on the social function of homosexuality in cultures ancient and modern, let me just assert that, guess what—we’re not the same. We’re different. Rather than try to paint heterosexual stripes on our pelts, let’s examine, explore and celebrate our different coloration.

The goal of the gay rights movement should not be to erase the perception of difference in the minds and hearts of our fellow citizens but to eliminate the use of that difference to deny us rights enjoyed by others.

Which brings me to the other level of my problem with the push for gay marriage: The timing couldn’t be worse. It’s a dangerously misguided political move during the Bush presidency with a Republican Congress full of born-again right-wing nuts. Marriage, as will be loudly declared by every Bible-thumping preacher and politician pushing for a constitutional amendment, is a heterosexual institution. “Marriage” is a term with a specific meaning and history.

And they’re right. Let them have it—the term and the institution. To engage in that argument is to be sidetracked by semantics. We should demand equal rights under the law until we receive them. Demand a civil contract recognized by state and federal governments that gives gay and lesbian unions the same rights, advantages and protections that marriage gives to heterosexual couples. If you want to have a clergy-blessed ceremony around the signing of that contract, have one. If you want to register at Target and get lots of stuff when you “wed,” do it. Let heterosexual men and women have their institution and their name for it; we need to find the imagination and the guts to visualize and build our own.

As Joel Bleifuss pointed out in his “First Stone” column (“Do You, Bob, Take This Man…,” December 22), the Massachusetts Supreme Court decision legalizing gay marriage [for the moment] in that state has pulled together the Christian right to fight what Focus on the Family’s founder calls the “tidal wave of homosexual activisim that is sweeping around the globe.” In other words, the backlash has begun. Gay marriage is likely to do for gay rights what the rallying cry of “abortion on demand” did for the Equal Rights Amendment and the women’s movement: It diverts the real debate, herding it into a cul-de-sac inhabited by screaming right-wing fundamentalists who will use it to galvanize opposition to gay rights in any form, on every level. It reduces the cause of gay rights to a single issue, one that will strike fear into the hearts of a population that has difficulty seeing past easy labels and sound bites. With the country swept up in the culture of fear and violence encouraged by the “bring-’em-on” belligerence of the insufferably self-righteous George W. Bush, it can lead to an unprecedented wave of gay-bashing that could take the fight to the streets.

Gay marriage is not for me; but in a perfect democratic world, it would be an option for those who want it. However, this world is not a perfect democracy, and the fight for gay marriage is the wrong fight at the wrong time. If we have to fight, let’s take a close look at what we’re struggling for. Let’s get beyond semantics and fight for equal rights for all.
Jim Rinnert is the art director at In These Times.

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  • Reader Comments

    Excellent commentary.  I agree.  The writer points out something I never thought of before, that there are two kinds of homosexuals.  The dignified, who-cares-let’s-get-on-with-it kind and the strident, hair-on-fire kind that spook the hell out of us straights with their antics.  And that’s why they don’t get the respect they so clearly desire.  They wreck it for themselves more than they know. 

    Posted by Margaret Todd on Dec 30, 2003 at 5:17 PM

    Well, I respect your point of view but it’s a little stupid to say that “gay marriage is likely to (...)divert the real debate, herding it into a cul-de-sac inhabited by screaming right-wing fundamentalists who will use it to galvanize opposition to gay rights in any form, on every level.”

    First, the opposition has ALWAYS existed, and since, for many decades the church and the right wing (at least in my country, MÈxico) have always been talking against same-sex relationships. When’s the right time to push the gay agenda? In 20 years from now? When we have another Bush or another extremist republican in office?

    “With the country swept up in the culture of fear and violence encouraged by the ìbring-íem-onî belligerence of the insufferably self-righteous George W. Bush, it can lead to an unprecedented wave of gay-bashing that could take the fight to the streets.”

    Well, it’s kind of sad to hear someone talk about that possibility. It may remind us the riots in California in the early 90’s by the black community. That was a situation that could be prevented and, for the shame of the american people, it’s very likely to be repeated; not by the gay community, but perhaps, another angrier and more violent minority who has been opressed for longer.

    The possibility for a change in society with order and peace can be achieved. It’s a matter of common sense and political commitment.

    Posted by Erich Moncada on Dec 30, 2003 at 6:49 PM

    Do not be fooled into thinking that “we” chose the timing for this fight, or this particular item, same-sex marriage, to fight for.

    This is a big issue to “them” and their timing for using the leverage of the impossible-to-pass Federal Marriage Amendment discussion to push back rights gained so far locally and state-level, is not accidental. They have all of the force of the government at all of its levels marginalizing Queers already.

    Do you really think it is beyond possibility that the street-level fighting you see in the future is happening already, right now, without rocks, fires or guns?

    People should not be afraid to ignore your advice to continue hiding under their blankets for fear of “backlash.” The backlash is well underway, and if you are not fighting it you are helping it. Telling people it is “not the right time,” or it’s too dangerous or any other squeamishness is helping the backlash.

    People, please ignore me and anyone else who tells you what you should be doing as a gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgendered, intersexed or questioning (Queer) human being. We are everywhere, we are everyone, and we are ready for anything. We will not go back, so if they push us forward in order to defeat us, we will need to just defend that position, and if we are scared, please just say that instead of telling everyone else they should be scared and they should not consider or should quit fighting because we did not choose this battle.

    There are more than two extremes, Jim, there are most of “us,” who actually fall somewhere in the middle and need encouragement in the defensive position we all find ourselves in, instead of discouragement.

    I am the owner of http://www.usQueers.com, and through that address an email list called anti-FMA is available, mainly for FMA articles and notices of local pro-FMA or anti-FMA actions so those who choose to can attend.

    Thanks for this article. It’s seems to be a good honest explanation of where you stand and why, which can only be helpful.

    Posted by B. Allan Ross on Dec 30, 2003 at 7:25 PM

    This is my answer to Jim Rinnert and the candidates who want civil same sex unions:  why fool around with anything else except the guarantee of equal legal rights of marriage?

    Perhaps not this time but eventually the bigots will get used to it like interracial and interreligious marriages----which despite unpopularity were never downgraded to civil unions or any other secondary designation. 

    Stewart MacMillan
    Guffin Bay NY 13634
    (315) 639 6432

    Posted by Stewart MacMillan on Dec 30, 2003 at 8:47 PM

    Here are the amendments (IX and X) I think relevant to the issue of
    gay unions/gay marriage.

    Personally, I think the movement should never have gone
    with the word “marriage”
    I know I’m opening a can of semantic worms.  I acknowledge
    that “separate but equal” as defined by Plessey v. Ferguson
    was not equal because the “enforcers” had a wink and a nod
    to see that the decision was intentionally applied in an
    unequal way.

    Why not have a separate law that defines same-sex relations
    as having all the entitlements and responsibilities as
    opposite-sex marriage and call it civil union?

    All the fundies can think of is the sex act when they hear
    the word marriage, even among themselves.  The word
    “marriage” is used by the fundies to legitimize the sex act and
    any resulting progeny.  A good many of them also think
    marriages are primarily religious ceremonies, and that the
    fundies will be forced to acknowledge all marriages performed in
    churches.  But of course that’s the fundi-centric way they
    have of defining anything:  only in terms of their own
    experiences and prejudices. 

    I believe that Catholic dogma won’t recognize the marriage
    of a man and woman who are incapable of having children,
    for whatever reason.  Yet civil law allows this marriage to
    be the full equivalent of that between a fully randy man and
    woman. 

    We’re allowing the religious taliban of Amerika to use
    their own definitions of marriage to run roughshod over
    gay/lesbian equality.

    We need our OWN definition of marriage which we can achieve
    by using the legislative process to write our own laws.

    If you think I’m being pusillanimous about being gay, think
    again.
    Just go to www.oklahomastonewall.org

    Posted by James Nimmo on Dec 30, 2003 at 9:31 PM

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Appeared in the January 19, 2004 Issue
Also by Jim Rinnert
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