While the debate over gay marriage has been raging in the public sphere between gay rights activists and the ultraright, there has been a much quieter debate within the gay community. The debate has focused on whether or not gay marriage is actually good for gay people. Is gay marriage assimilation? Will it create more divisions in the gay community? Will gay marriage even make a difference in the lives of most gay people?

These questions are important and need to be answered. Unfortunately, the debate between the liberal pro-gay marriage and the leftist anti-gay marriage advocates has been unable to answer these questions.

On one side, anti-marriage arguments center on the assimilationist and heterosexist trappings of marriage. They argue that instead of valuing gay relationships and creating our own institution that reflect the nature of our relationships, gay people are moving into an institution that is filled with heterosexism and negative trappings. Whether or not monogamy is needed in gay relationships and the issue of sexism within marriage are frequently debated in this context.

An important second argument is over what will happen to the gay community if gay marriage is legalized. Will there now be a section of 'good gays,' those who get married, are monogamous and raise children, and 'bad gays,' those who do not get married, are not monogamous and choose not to have families. Activist worry about how this will affect other issues facing gay people. Will the marriage test be a way to divide the community and prioritize whose struggles will be fought and whose struggles will be deemed unworthy?

While these are questions that need to be discussed and thought about, the arguments against gay marriage miss the point. It is one thing for a gay person to argue that gays should not get married because of the negative trappings of marriage. It is totally different, however, to not even work on the issues of allowing gay people the ability to choose whether or not they want to get married. First and foremost gays and lesbians should have the ability to choose whether or not they want to enter into the same institutions as heterosexual couples. Without the access, the argument is simply self-serving and arrogant.

That being said, we should not fool ourselves with the liberal assumptions about the inherent goodness of marriage. Many gay marriage advocates insist that marriage is a 'right.' Marriage, truly, is not a 'right' in the same sense as other Constitutionally guaranteed protections. It is not something that is guaranteed to all people and that lack of access to it prevents someone from fully developing as a person. However, the issue of access is a right. Everyone has a right to equal access and protection under the law. Equality under the law must be the starting point of struggle. For without it, the struggle is baseless.

Many gay rights advocates see marriage as the pinnacle and indeed the final 'phase' of the gay rights movement. They argue that allowing gay marriage will lessen homophobia in society. This is ridiculous and backward. It follows the bourgeois notion that equality under the law means true equality. People who are homophobic do not dislike gay people because they are not married or not equal in the eyes of the law; they dislike gay people because of who they have sex with. Gay marriage will not make a difference to them. No one has explained how gay marriage will stop harassment and discrimination on the streets, on their jobs and in their communities.

In rejecting both of the arguments, leftists and gays need to find a third way. We must argue and fight for everyone to be involved in the battle for gay marriage, no matter what their position is on the issue. The issue is truly about the right to access, not about whether or not individuals like or dislike marriage or whether or not gay marriage will somehow make our society more tolerant. We must continue and further the discussion about the role, or lack thereof, the government should have in creating families and dictating who a person can and cannot love. We know that marriage, with its many benefits from social security to immigration, will improve the lives of millions of gay people.

As for dealing with the anti-marriage gays, we need to recognize that the issues surrounding assimilationism and a carving out of 'good gays' and 'bad gays,' really has nothing to do with gay marriage but has to do with homophobes who want to continue to demonize gay people. If there were not homophobes, then there would be no 'bad gays.'

Also, wouldn’t it be better, if we were actually able to choose to not get married, instead of being told we can’t get married? I think so.



--Adam Tenney can be reached by e-mail at pa-letters@politicalaffairs.net.



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