I've been, as usual, infinitely lax in my blogging responsibilities. In the spirit of yesterday's National Coming Out Day, the obnoxiously unfurling election season, and Will Danger's secret desire to be a bridezilla, let's talk about marriage.
The fact that in 2012, when a politician says "LGBT rights," they really mean "gay marriage" says a lot about the way we think, sure. Nonetheless, the mainstream LGBT movement's matrimonial tunnel vision is toxic for a poop-ton of reasons. In a practical sense, it keeps us from mobilizing political energy on other issues, many of which are more pressing that my right to bear wedding dresses. But in a more fundamental way, the focus on marriage is limiting the way we think about so-called "LGBT issues" and indicates a national refusal of more complex, messy political thinking. After all, in neoliberal America we love the supposed clarity of identity politics. Our inability to think and legislate sexuality alongside, within, or even as race, class, and gender continues to cripple our ability to address the structural economic inequality in which marriage obviously participates. It also hampers the cultivation of an American political vision that might actually start to earn the increasingly tired label "progressive."
Lately, I've been all about plunging headlong into possibility. I think then, what I find most fascinating about homomatrimony is that it contains the possibility to fracture the stability of our gender relations. Marriage remains, after all, public enemy number one in terms of gross medieval gender dynamics and is also a primary organizing framework for American culture. So an invasion of "traditional marriage" might be exactly what the doctor ordered in terms of finally letting American gender off the leash. What happens to our sense of culture when gender runs wild, queers leading the charge? Can we start to imagine male spinsters or female lotharios or chick flicks for men? Do many/most of our cultural assumptions become deservedly denaturalized, and might this mean that we can finally start thinking beyond gender? Letting loose the reigns on marriage could reorder our culture in some really thrilling ways, and might open up some exciting and startlingly queer horizons of possibility.
And I suppose that this cultural reordering is exactly what opponents of marriage equality are afraid of. They worry that enabling the gayz to marry will unravel the fabric of society. On this particular rainy Friday, I'm sort of inclined to say, "Duh." But that's exactly the point. Sorry [insert dummy Republican], but legalizing gay marriage might actually help dismantle, or at least de-privilege an institution from which you draw a lot of smug/undeserved economic and cultural capital/superiority/privilege. [This is probably the point at which you realize I will never be a political figure, if you've even managed to make it this far with that delusion in mind]. If I allow myself to loosen my white-knuckled grip on the queer critiques of marriage for which Madwoman spectacularly calls my generation out, marriage equality might create a political environment that finally forces our political thinking to evolve, in which we can finally think about race and class alongside and in place of LGBT issues. [Quick aside: Isn't your run-of-the-mill queer critique of marriage almost as privileged and culturally specific as the institution of marriage itself?]
I'm certainly not saying that there is no trouble with normal, just that it's become obnoxiously hipster-trendy to think that marriage equality is stupid. An aversion to marriage has achieved common sense status in many queer circles (circles that, perhaps ironically, claim to resist common sense in most other contexts). I just wonder if anyone's pausing to wonder what might be queer about voting for marriage equality, and about the important ways that achieving marriage equality could reorient and expand the American political imagination.
At any rate, folks, votevotevote. Vote. Vote. Be as brilliantly queer and subversive as you can, there's still nothing cool about not voting.
Thanks for the shout-outs, Will Danger. So lovely to see you back in this space. I heart this line big time: "[I]t's become obnoxiously hipster-trendy to think that marriage equality is stupid." So true. Here's to being the opposite of obnoxiously hipster-trendy, whatever that might be, now and forever.
ReplyDeleteAnd, uh, are you still registered to vote in your former home state? Don't forget that absentee ballot, darlin'. We need every vote!
Afraid that after much deliberation and internal struggle, I registered in Washington state because, in addition to being a swing state for the presidential election, the state is also voting on its own marriage equality initiative. I was disappointed to learn that WA does all of it's voting by mail though, so I don't get the satisfaction of a flesh-and-blood voting booth.
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