Rethinking (gay) marriage

In 2009, the Iowa State Supreme Court ruled in favor of legalizing same-sex marriage.

The court’s decision is now in danger of being overturned. Following the resignation of
Democratic Sen. Swati Dandekar, Iowa Democrats are at risk of losing their senate majority.

Earlier this year, the Iowa House passed a bill to overturn the legality of gay marriage. If the empty senate seat is filled by a Republican, the bill will stand a much better chance of becoming an amendment and could appear on the 2013 ballot.

Here is another crucial moment in the fight to establish equal rights for a group of people whose very identity has been demonized and illegalized by the state. By “defending” marriage, the law actually denies a class of people access to financial and social benefits.

While this is primarily a civil rights issue, gay marriage is also an important means of thinking about marriage itself and the benefits that come with it.

Why does marriage need defending? And what exactly is it being defended from?

Maybe it’s the potential for rethinking an institution that reproduces inequality between men and women, straights and gays. Maybe gay marriage really would be a challenge to heteronormative notions of family and the gendered division of labor, or maybe gay marriage would mean the end of marriage as we know it. Maybe this is a good thing.

Marriage is an undeniably important and pervasive social institution. It actively reinforces notions of gender stereotypes and structures our understanding of family.
In its current iteration, “defending marriage” reduces LGBT people to second-class citizens.

It’s time to consider a new way of thinking about kinship that isn’t bound by the restrictions of man and wife.

Nancy Polikoff’s book “Beyond (Straight and Gay) Marriage” deals with this possibility.

Polikoff is concerned with restructuring law so that it doesn’t just privilege marriage, but rather values all kinds of family. She wrote, “Laws that value all families are not primarily about legitimating gay relationships that mirror marriage. They are about ensuring that every relationship and every family has the legal framework for economic and emotional security.”

Polikoff  urges politicians to rethink assumptions about marriage and bestow benefits in a way that recognizes the different family dynamics. She doesn’t want to continue privileging certain kinds of relationships and not others.

In advocating Polikoff’s thinking of family, I do not mean to suggest that legalizing gay marriage is a worthless cause. It should be one of the foremost political concerns for our generation.

As long as LGBT people are judicially and legislatively discriminated against, there can be no rest in the fight for equal rights. Marriage must be made accessible to all people. At the same time, we should be asking why marriage, above all varieties of family or relationships, is valued.

A redefinition of family would provide benefits for non-heteronormative living arrangements: unmarried couples, single parents, open relationships and close friends. It would denaturalize our assumptions about marriage, and it would protect individuals on the basis of the families they choose for themselves.

So, marriage isn’t destiny, but it is a civil right for all citizens regardless of sexual
orientation.

­— ptbeane@indiana.edu