beyond marriage

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Submitted by nclarkson on Thu, 07/27/2006 - 6:51pm.

An email about Beyond Marriage.org came across the Queer Studies listserv I'm on.  The summary provides a very interesting vision for queer politics.  The authors of this statement would like to see GLBT political groups (among others) fight for:

Ø   Legal recognition for a wide range of relationships, households and families – regardless of kinship or conjugal status.

Ø   Access for all, regardless of marital or citizenship status, to vital government support programs including but not limited to health care, housing, Social Security and pension plans, disaster recovery assistance, unemployment insurance and welfare assistance.

Ø   Separation of church and state in all matters, including regulation and recognition of relationships, households and families.

Ø   Freedom from state regulation of our sexual lives and gender choices, identities and expression.

 Within this statement, they also give examples of many of the sorts of pre-existing kinship networks that people engage in.  These kinship networks are generally regarded as acceptable living arrangements, yet married [heterosexual] couples are the only kinship arrangement sanctioned by the government as worthy of the however-many rights come with marriage.

Though I resent the government telling me and other queers that we don't have access to something straight people have access to, that we are, effectively, second-class citizens, I'm also not on board with a marriage-focused GLBT politics.  Fighting for access to a heteronormative institution, fighting for rights we pay for by becoming normalized (heterosexualized) "gays and lesbians" (with the addition of "transgender" when we're remembered) doesn't seem like a worthwhile fight to me.  I don't want to be part of an institution that carries so much polarized gender and sexist baggage.  If GLBT/queer politics were about broadening the recognition of and rights accorded to a variety of kinship structures like some of the ones listed in this Beyond Marriage.org statement, that would be a movement I could get on board with.

 

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Complicated?

#34 On Fri, 07/28/2006 3:27pm parkerb said,

These conversations about marriage are never simple and almost always very emotional. The institution of marriage undeniably comes loaded with baggage and gendered, classes and sexed understandings. I myself resist lgbt politics that are aimed specifically at marriage. However, one of the things that I have had to think about lately is the ways my theories and ideas get played out in the world. Does theory make a difference when it is not grounded in daily social conditions?

I remember reading an essay as an undergraduate student by Michelangelo Signorile about the ways that denial of marriage rights and legally sanctioned relationships is effectively violence against gay couples and leads to such things as AIDS infections. This arguement is ripe with areas to be debated and I certainly don't buy it whole heartedly but I wonder if gay relationships were sanctioned many many years ago would gay sexuality and emerged as it has that makes the community more at risk for hiv/aids infections?

I also find myself thinking that while I don't necessarily think I am ready for it nor am I one hundred percent sure what I want it to look like but I am pretty confident that I would like to end up in a long term monogamous(ish) relationship. Is it essential to me that it be called a marriage? I don't think so.

Marriage is complicated and an issue that affects the transgender community in strong and deep ways. Sometimes I forget that and have to look at some our closest colleagues and remember that while they look heterosexual as always things are not as simple as they appear.

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sure is!

#35 On Sat, 07/29/2006 12:48pm pennyjane said,

complicated far beyond necessity i think! my wife is terrified that if i go thru with srs the gov't will get a wild hair up their butts and put together some procedures for annulling our twenty-six year marriage. dumb as heck, but remember it's the gov't i'm speaking of. i think the fairest of all solutions would be for the gov't to get out of the business of marriage altogether. they should recognize civil unions only between any two consenting adults. leave marriage to the pervue in which it belongs, the churches, temples, synagoges and any other institution that wishes to sanction it but it would have no bearing on the gov't. too simple? probably scarin' the bejuesus out of some legislator right now. lotsa love, pj

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