Infighting: Gay Marriage

Two progressives debate marriage’s importance for the LGBT community.

By Kat Lewis and Rob Anderson
September 18-21, 2006

Day 4: Marriage Rights are Equal Rights

By Rob Anderson
September 21, 2006

Kat,

We can debate our interpretations of LGBT history, but those interpretations must be reality-based if we hope to get anywhere. Yours, unfortunately, are not.

Your claim that the post-Stonewall gay liberation movement "is generally considered to be the birth of contemporary LGBT politics" is incorrect, and you don’t have to be a polo-shirt wearing, collar-popping gay conservative to believe this. In her important introduction to queer theory, author Annamarie Jagose calls the Stonewall riots a "mythological date for the origin of the gay liberation movement" (emphasis mine). And she’s right: While pre-1969 LGBT activism was certainly more limited than post-1969 activism, the earlier movement laid the groundwork for the today’s LGBT activism. To be sure, Stonewall was an important catalyst, but it was not, as you contend, the beginning of contemporary LGBT politics.

By ignoring the pre-Stonewall LGBT movement, you run into a bit of factual trouble. You state that it "wasn’t until the second half of the 1970s, as larger gay organizations such as New York’s Gay Activists Alliance became more conservative, and their leadership increasingly white, male, and middle class, that ‘equal rights’ became part of the language of LGBT activism." If the language of equal rights only became part of LGBT activism during the mid-70s, how do you explain these pictures taken four years before Stonewall at a 1965 LGBT picket of the White House? (How many times can you find the word "equal"? I count four.) In reality, the language of equal rights was not implanted upon the LGBT movement by a careless class of rich, white men during the 1970s—it had been there all along, and is the foundation upon which the movement was built.

The same goes for same-sex marriage. While you argue that the fight for marriage equality developed separately from the radical years of gay liberation, the facts tell a different story: The push for same-sex marriage in the United States began nine months after Stonewall, on May 18, 1970, when Michael McConnell and Jack Baker were denied a marriage license in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Over the following 36 years, the importance of the battle for same-sex marriage has waxed and waned. But the fight has been a long one—and it’s one we are winning. Sure, we face the occasional setback, but as tolerance for homosexuality continues to increase and the idea of same-sex marriage becomes less extreme, the chance of same-sex marriage being legalized in our lifetime greatly increases.

These historical points are not just petty nitpicks. Understanding how the LGBT movement was built should help us understand why what we fight for today is important. If we lack this understanding, it is easy to claim boldly that the time has come to move "beyond marriage." But sometimes wisdom and persistence are more useful than dreams of revolution.

This is what I see as the main difference between your stance and mine, Kat: You believe that only one vision of the LGBT movement, yours, is the correct one. If it’s not radical, it’s not good enough. You claim to have no interest in telling "someone else how they can structure their family." But by arguing that those who wish to marry (or, as you call it, "ape heteronormative society") must stop their fight for the legalization of same-sex marriage, you are telling people how to live their lives. If you truly believe LGBT Americans should have the right to marry if they so choose, why waste your time attacking the individuals fighting for this right?

I believe the strength of the LGBT community comes from our diversity, and that we stand to gain the most from supporting each other’s fights. I also believe LGBT Americans can advance only if we, and our allies, work to create change from inside and outside "the system." We have the talent, resources, and will to fight—and win—many simultaneous battles. As I explained in my opening salvo of our debate, the fight for same-sex marriage is worthwhile and important, but I happily admit that there are many other battles worth fighting.

My position boils down to this: I believe you should have the ability to lead your life as you choose, with whomever you choose. And I will fight for your right to do so. But, in return, I expect you to fight for mine.

Day 3: Radical Love – LGBT Activist History Goes Beyond Marriage

By Kat Lewis
September 20, 2006

Rob, I am totally happy to debate LGBT activist history with you. In fact, I would belabor the point, mainly because I think it’s critically important that folks have an understanding that the present landscape of LGBT politics is certainly not the way it’s always been. The leaders of the post-Stonewall gay liberation movement, which is generally considered to be the birth of contemporary LGBT politics, were absolutely not interested in “equality.” These were activists who styled themselves after radical New Left, Black, and Third World liberation groups, and they demanded a much broader kind of change. In fact, they wanted a revolution, if you want to get technical. Gay liberationists were very much opposed to same-sex marriage, partially because of their radical feminist and Marxist commitments. It wasn’t until the second half of the 1970s, as larger gay organizations such as New York’s Gay Activists Alliance became more conservative, and their leadership increasingly white, male, and middle class, that “equal rights” became part of the language of LGBT activism. But there have always been progressive fringes of the gay movement that have carried on the tradition of queer radicalism.

When we remember the radical history of LGBT politics, we remember that there is nothing inevitable about the limited vision of progress that LGBT leaders have come to accept. I am not going to argue that LGBT people shouldn’t be allowed to choose marriage. Personally, I have reservations about centering a movement on the right to ape heteronormative society, but I’m not going to tell someone else how they can structure their family. Rather, we should not be forced to choose marriage because it presents the only viable means of living a financially stable life in this country. You rightly point out that marriage endows over 1,000 benefits and protections, and this, exactly, is the problem: an individual should not need marriage in order to access those privileges. Rather than simply expanding the number of people who can access marriage in order to get at the benefits, wouldn’t a more direct and comprehensive approach involve disregarding marriage and working to expand the number of individuals who can access those benefits, regardless of marital status? This approach goes “beyond marriage” in the sense that it looks beyond the narrow framing of current debates in order to critique our entire benefit distribution system.

You also noted that the fight for same-sex marriage and the fight for the other progressive goals we’ve discussed are related rather than opposed. In an ideal world, I’d readily concede. Unfortunately, the programmatic work of national LGBT organizations has often been at odds with the real needs of many LGBT people. The Human Rights Campaign, for instance—the country’s largest LGBT organization—is notorious for endorsing fiscally conservative politicians simply because of their support for gay marriage. The marriage section of HRC’s website contends that same sex marriage should be supported in order to help “reduce [LGBT families’] dependence on public assistance programs, such as Medicaid, Temporary Assistance to Needy Families, Supplemental Security Income disability payments and food stamps.” This kind of reasoning, clearly, plays directly into the right wing’s scheme to use marriage to take up the slack from the dwindling supply of public benefits, and affirms the twisted logic that the “problem” taxpayers should be worried about is spending money on public assistance. It also tacitly affirms the right wing’s moral stance on marriage: that only certain kinds of families are legitimate and only certain relationships are worthy of legal recognition.

It is critical that progressives start recognizing these contradictions in the push for same-sex marriage. Our task is not simply to concede, as you write, that “we need marriage in addition to these other protections.” Rather, LGBT progressives must start looking at how our resources are allocated in this fight, and what ideological and material sacrifices have already been made in the name of “marriage equality.” We need to recall the expansive political imaginations of the Stonewall activists and start envisioning wholly new and diverse strategies for structuring an LGBT movement.

Day 2: Embracing the “Pro-Choice” Marriage Movement

By Rob Anderson
September 19, 2006

Kat,

Your description of the push to legalize same-sex marriage as "anti-progressive," "unacceptable," and "largely symbolic" betrays both the history of the LGBT movement and the facts about same-sex marriage. Before we can decide whether or not to move beyond same-sex marriage, we should first accurately understand how same-sex marriage fits into our history, who would benefit from it, and how.

Less than 30 years ago, LGBT Americans were considered perverted and sick in the minds of most Americans, and were criminals according to the laws of the American justice system. We were hated, misunderstood, and without the protection of the law—a dangerous position for any minority group in America. Facing overwhelming odds, brave activists began building the foundations of the LGBT movement, demanding equal treatment under the law and the freedom to live open, safe, and healthy lives as LGBT Americans. These ideals remain the foundation upon which the movement continues to fight today—in its battles to end hate crimes, stop the spread of HIV/AIDS, and secure the rights of transgender Americans.

It is this same yearning for equality that drives the push for the legalization of same-sex marriage. While LGBT Americans do not have to marry if they choose not to, they certainly should have the option. The movement to legalize same-sex marriage is a pro-choice movement; the freedom to choose how we live our lives, and with whom, is as progressive an ideal as any.

You argue that the legalization of same-sex marriage would amount to a "largely symbolic victory." The fight for same-sex marriage certainly holds symbolic value in the American culture wars, but its importance does not end there. According to the U.S. Government Accountability Office, marriage offers over 1,000 protections and benefits to married couples. Marriage laws guarantee a partner’s right to hospital visitations, the right to make decisions in the case of a medical emergency, and the right to inheritance without a will. Symbolic? These concerns are about as practical as they get.

Should marriage-like arrangements, such as civil unions, offer similar benefits? Of course. But that certainly doesn’t negate the need for same-sex marriage.

You also claim that LGBT activists have failed to make a connection between attacks against the LGBT community and "similar attacks on the poor, on people of color, [and] on immigrants." But attacks against same-sex marriage are attacks against these groups! Poor families and families of color would gain the most if same-sex marriage were legalized. As former Village Voice editor and columnist Richard Goldstein wrote in his essay "The Radical Case for Gay Marriage":

As things are, [poor families] may not qualify for public housing; family courts may not accept their claims of domestic abuse; hospitals can—and regularly do—dismiss their right to make medical decisions on behalf of a loved one; they lack the standing to sue for a partner’s wrongful death; they can’t count on a partner’s social security benefits.

While wealthy LGBT families can hire expensive lawyers to tiptoe around the legal system, poor families cannot. These families must rely on laws to protect them. Without guaranteed protections, their day-to-day lives become more perilous.

Furthermore, legalized same-sex marriage would also benefit the children of LGBT couples. Factor in these statistics: Thirty-four percent of lesbian and gay couples in the South are raising kids; one-third of lesbian households contain children; one-fifth of gay households contain children; and lesbians of color are more likely than white lesbians to have children. Goldstein is right when he labels same-sex marriage "a black, working-class, women’s issue."

I agree when you argue the LGBT movement should be fighting for the rights of LGBT homeless youth and seniors, for universal healthcare, and against all permutations of the religious right. But while we do that, why can’t we continue our 36-year long push for marriage equality? These battles are connected, not antithetical.

Day 1: Why Marriage Shouldn’t Be First on the “Agenda”

By Kat Lewis
September 18, 2006

When I agreed to participate in this Infighting debate, I secretly hoped I wouldn’t have to go first, since frankly, I had no idea how to start. Why not gay marriage as a main focus of the LGBT movement? The good news is a lot of explaining has already been done for me. Last month, a group of over 250 activists and academics released a comprehensive statement outlining the profound pitfalls and limitations of the current debates around same sex marriage. Entitled “Beyond Same-Sex Marriage,” the piece decries the right wing “family vales” attack on virtually all nontraditional families in the U.S., regardless of sexual orientation. Making connections between LGBT, racial, and economic justice, the authors call for new and creative strategies that build alliances across issues and communities in order to respond to the conservative threat.

Centering an LGBT movement on a pro-marriage agenda means, first of all, capitulating to a paradigm of legal recognition and benefit distribution that is unacceptable and anti-progressive. While pro-marriage LGBT activists correctly decry the right wing’s attack on gay and lesbian families, they have failed to make the connection to similar attacks on the poor, on people of color, on immigrants, and on a wide range of nontraditionally configured households. The Federal Marriage Amendment, proposed by radical right wingers to constitutionally define marriage as a union between a man and a woman, is only a small part of a larger “traditional values” scheme that includes promotion of hetero-marriage as a substitute for welfare assistance to single mothers, abstinence-only sex education, and anti-choice legislation.

Ironically, pro-gay marriage activists have played right into this conservative “family values” ideology, and are left demanding marital privileges that fewer and fewer of our community can access. Although you wouldn’t know it from the mainstream media portrayals of affluent, white gay people (“Will and Grace” comes to mind), LGBT people are in fact disproportionately unemployed, poor, homeless, and incarcerated—all phenomena that securing marital benefits would do very little to change. A study in San Francisco, for example, notes widespread barriers to housing and employment in LGBT communities, and places the nationwide unemployment rate of transexuals at a staggering 70 percent. As a transgender person myself, I know that gay marriage does very little to address the kinds of discrimination and structural violence faced daily by my community. For example, most U.S. residents live in areas where gender identity isn’t protected by antidiscrimination legislation, an issue with which many pro-marriage gays seem unconcerned.

In addition, close to 50 percent of homeless youth in New York City identify as LGBT, and researchers speculate that LGBT youth are also over-represented in the criminal justice system. Finally, the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force writes that the vast majority of LGBT seniors live alone. What can access to a spouse’s white collar private health care benefits mean for our community when more and more of us are underemployed or jobless, homeless, or—for whatever reason—simply not in conjugal relationships? Marriage—same-sex or otherwise—should not be a prerequisite for an individual’s or family’s health and stability.

Progressive activists are increasingly pushing LGBT people to begin to imagine a broader kind of social change. Instead of fighting for limited benefits secured only through a very specific form of family arrangement, couldn’t we instead demand universal healthcare for all people, regardless of racial, sexual, or gender identity, and regardless of income or citizenship? Why have we come to accept the right wing’s presumption that there need be any connection between conjugal relationship and benefit distribution? Instead of hounding after the largely symbolic victory promised by same-sex marriage, LGBT activists should be focusing on the real needs of our community: safety from violence and discrimination, access to housing and employment, and the possibility of many diverse kinds of individual and familial self-determination.

 
Cartoon by Mikhaela Reid

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