May 2004

Views expressed are those of the authors, not necessarily of the AFSC.

Uncoupling Marriage and the State

Amy Beth is an academic librarian. Jim Jer-Don is a Spanish teacher. Both are Massachusetts residents.

Until the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court's recent Goodridge decision, neither of us considered gay marriage to be a priority for lesbian and gay liberation as we understood it, nor did we apply much energy to participation in the debate over marriage within the lesbian/gay/bisexual/transgender (LGBT) community. Needless to say, the political response to the court's ruling, including the possibility of federal and state constitutional amendments enshrining our status as second-class citizens, has forced us and many progressives to take a stand in "support" of gay marriage while maintaining our longstanding critique of the institution itself. The complications inherent in this seemingly contradictory stand are an accurate reflection of the complications of being a queer progressive in a homophobic society.

Here, we begin to map our views as one lesbian and one gay man. We make no claim to represent the "lesbian and gay community." In fact we feel that many of the tensions around this issue are fostered and exacerbated by institutional voices, with their specifically assimilationist agendas, claiming to represent all lesbians, gays, and bisexuals; behavior which parallels the claims made by the religious Right and conservative forces to speak for "average Americans." The deeply rhetorical posturing exercised by both sides, roughly framed as "rights" versus "sanctity," fails to identify an important, unarticulated assumption common to both positions: the fundamental acceptance of the state's right to bestow social and economic privileges on the coupled, whether heterosexual or homosexual.

It is precisely the selective assignation of these privileges which ensures that the institution of marriage serves as a governmentally enforced barrier to the full expression of citizenship and humanity for some, while elevating the status of others. Throughout US history the constraints placed on access to the benefits of marriage have reflected the social and political agenda of the state, whether through anti-miscegenation laws which reflected the segregationist ideology of their era, or the profound legal, economic, and cultural disadvantages for women that have girded the institution from its inception. Despite our culture's promotion of marriage as the defining institution of coupled "love," the primary function of the institution is clearly economic. Whether straight or gay, in legalized marriage a couple is recognized and operates as a privileged economic entity with access to many perquisites not afforded the unmarried. One trip to city hall or to your employers' human resources department to register as a domestic partner (a purportedly parallel institution) can clarify the degree to which "love" is not what is being authorized.

At City Hall*, a same-sex couple seeking domestic partner status must endure the insult of paying the same fee as heterosexuals acquiring a marriage license for a fraction of the benefits (city or state benefits are drastically different from federal benefits), while simultaneously being required to show considerably more documentation verifying economic interdependence including joint bank accounts, leases, mortgages, credit cards, loan obligations, utility bills, and vehicle titles. In addition to that substantial requirement, each member of the couple must sign an affidavit stating that they have been living together, and that he or she has not been a registered domestic partner with anyone else within the last six months.

This state regulation of our private lives, with its complete disrespect for autonomous decision-making, holds no appeal to us. What does matter to us, however, is that the specific benefits currently afforded by marriage be extended to all people, coupled or not. Among these are access to health care, the right to name beneficiaries, the power to determine care providers, and the right to have the families we create, including the children we raise, legally recognized. These rights, and many more, ought to be the hallmarks of full membership in civil humanity and not the purview only of those whom the state sees fit to marry.

We wish the work of queers and straight allies would be to forge access to all basic human needs universally, rather than creating limited access for a few to existing, and unsatisfactory, institutional offerings. Our exclusion from privilege should spawn demands for full societal membership regardless of marital status. The institution of marriage should be scrutinized and, at least in terms of the government's role, abandoned, rather than expanded. The state should get out of the business of marrying; leave that to religious institutions. No progress is made when one societal group (in this case, people in couples) is elevated to a place of entitlement while others are still oppressed; same-sex marriage is a false bargaining chip. We emphatically reject the mere extension of privileges to some, while an exclusionary and privileging institution is essentially maintained.

If gay marriage is institutionalized, we fear that current alternatives to marriage will lose their social validity and legal significance, creating a culture of "compulsory marriage" among lesbians and gays corresponding to the culture of compulsory marriage already operating for mixed-sex couples. Furthermore, all of the political capital and every real dollar spent pursuing the equivalent of heterosexual marital bliss directly impacts other, more pressing issues.

The energy expended on marriage, and the media coverage exhausted, might have been better spent on other priorities including: queer youth who are harassed so intensely that they face a significant risk for adolescent suicide; responding to the rampant drug abuse and alcoholism in the LGBT community; addressing widespread poverty among lesbians; the vulnerability of queers to hate crimes in both private and public space; or the restrictive laws imposed by our government against visitors and immigrants if they admit to having had homosexual sex. These and other manifestations of homophobia are wreaking havoc on, and in, our communities, and we believe they are far more pressing than the struggle to participate in marriage and the consumerist culture that it entails.

It is tempting to believe that gay marriage will bestow legitimacy upon our people. Likewise it is tempting to believe that legitimizing gay marriage will help to dampen both homophobic harassment and the internalized homophobia fueled by that harassment. But bigots maintain steadfast hatred towards many things the law has legitimized.

For us, it is difficult to swallow the gay marital enthusiasm of people who have neither proactively struggled against homophobia, nor recognized their own contribution to its onerous forms.

People need to be comfortable asking each other "are you gay?" instead of placing the onus on the individual to come out while hiding behind the presumption that it is an insult to falsely believe someone is gay. Rather, it is insulting to be asked, "Are you getting married?" - if no other inquiry or support has ever been offered.

We began by noting that the argument has been framed as a "rights" versus "sanctity" issue. By demanding that all parties involved in the debate attend to the essentially economic function of state sanctioned marriage, we hope to make clear that a marriage license has very little to do with either concept. To most members of the LGBT community and our supporters, it is self-evident that there is little that is sacred in city hall's issuance of a marriage license. It requires a more attentive examination of what is really at stake, however, to see that the extension of access to marriage does not in itself advance any "rights;" it simply broadens the category of individuals to whom privileges are unfairly afforded.

We share the genuine desire to see ourselves the legal equals of heterosexuals, but that equality must be mapped broadly, in order to open access to everyone: coupled, single, straight or queer.

*This analysis of domestic partnership programs is based on experiences in New York City and Burlington, VT. Both of these cities' policies were in turn used as models by other cities in crafting their own domestic partnership policies.

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