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Mar. 13th, 2013 08:44 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
stormdogI'm reading two pieces written by lesbian activists who are against the expansion of traditional marriage to include partners of the same sex.
It's made me realize that it could be looked at as heteronormative society imposing a marital hegemony onto the LGBTQ community. Rather than recognizing a variety of new and beautiful forms of relationship, we sort of defang the serpent by squeezing it into an inherently gendered form that magically becomes worthy of social recognition.
I'm not sure if I feel that way. But there's been so much material to read in this course that's made me examine my thinking in some really fantastic ways.
In her conclusion, Nancy Polikoff writes that fighting for lesbian and gay marriage contradicts efforts to disconnect economic benefits from marriage and distracts from the need to make basic health care available to everyone. It requires emphasizing similarities between queer values and heteronormative ones. That it values long-term monogamous couples over all other relationships. She writes:
I can really see what she's getting at there, and it's a little scary. It's a warning that the ability for queer folks to marry will create a mirror of existing culture and society, losing an opportunity for GLBTQ folks to use their own experiences in creating communities of recognition and their own forms of relationship to transform larger society. Instead of we GLBTQ folks making society at large more fabulous, they will make *us* more plain.
It's made me realize that it could be looked at as heteronormative society imposing a marital hegemony onto the LGBTQ community. Rather than recognizing a variety of new and beautiful forms of relationship, we sort of defang the serpent by squeezing it into an inherently gendered form that magically becomes worthy of social recognition.
I'm not sure if I feel that way. But there's been so much material to read in this course that's made me examine my thinking in some really fantastic ways.
In her conclusion, Nancy Polikoff writes that fighting for lesbian and gay marriage contradicts efforts to disconnect economic benefits from marriage and distracts from the need to make basic health care available to everyone. It requires emphasizing similarities between queer values and heteronormative ones. That it values long-term monogamous couples over all other relationships. She writes:
"I fear that the very process of employing that rhetorical strategy for the years it will take to achieve its objective will lead our movement's public representatives, and the countless lesbians and gay men who hear us, to believe exactly what we say."
I can really see what she's getting at there, and it's a little scary. It's a warning that the ability for queer folks to marry will create a mirror of existing culture and society, losing an opportunity for GLBTQ folks to use their own experiences in creating communities of recognition and their own forms of relationship to transform larger society. Instead of we GLBTQ folks making society at large more fabulous, they will make *us* more plain.
