Beyond Gay Marriage

... is the title of a thoughtful article by Lisa Duggan and Richard Kim in the July 18 issue of The Nation. They reframe the controversy over gay marriage to address the seeming contradiction between increasing acceptance of glbt folk (socially and legally) and the success in recent elections of anti-gay-marriage initiatives in several states.

So, what's up? Well, according to Duggan and Kim, the source of support for these initiatives can be found in increasing anxiety over household social and financial security: "Care for children and the elderly, for the ill and disabled, has been shifted toward unpaid women at home or to low-paid, privately employed female domestic workers. In this context, household stability becomes a life-and-death issue."

I appreciate this articulate discussion of an issue I've struggled with for years. Having spent a couple of years as county spokesmodel for a gay rights organization, I was approached to get involved with a gay marriage group in my hometown. The person who approached me was surprised--even insulted--that I would refuse. I tried to explain that I didn't necessarily agree with making marriage rights a priority, that this might in fact backfire. And it has.

I agree with Duggan and Kim when they assert that "progressive Democrats and gays must come together to reframe the issue as part of a larger campaign for household democracy and security, a campaign that responds to the diverse ways Americans actually structure their intimate lives." That means universal health care and improving Social Security. It means improved access to child care.

Of course, I'll go even farther: it means getting the government out of the business of marraige altogether. The nuclear family, on which our current marriage laws is based, is an historically constituted and thus changing institution. Only within the idealized progress narratives of the right is the nuclear family the penultimate form of household arrangement. We need laws and policies that respect all the sorts of household arrangements that exist today.

Including mine.