For better or for worse

Marriage equality (aka “gay marriage,” “same-sex marriage”—ssm, for short) seems suddenly to be on the fast track toward nationwide acceptance. The speed of the shift seems really breathtaking. But I have to say, I find myself as much troubled as excited by its speed and magnitude. First, more on the trend and then on to the troubles …

This shift toward support for ssm has been in the wind for a while. I’ve mentioned before the growing sophistication of queer organizing around this issue—the smarter messaging, the sharing of resources and ideas across state organizations fighting for ssm (or against laws prohibiting ssm). We’ve also seen hints for a long time in the steady change in the polls. Gradually, over the past few years, public support for ssm has increased; now it’s over 50%.

The gradual trend took a major leap when President Obama “evolved” last year to a position of support for marriage equality. Lo and behold—partly because of his public support, but also because of the two other items I just mentioned—last November saw a sea change. For the very first time, after losing every single electoral battle over the years (more than 30 of them), ssm won in four states: it was approved in three, and a fourth state refused to pass a law banning it. First time ever! Times 4!

Also, the Supreme Court has agreed to hear two ssm cases. Whether that’s a good thing or not remains to be seen. If they rule against it—which could well happen, given the make-up of this court—that will set a precedent that could block serious progress for a long time. But still, the fact that the issue has moved to the fore enough that it’s on the Supremes’ docket is itself amazing.

And then this week, some combination of those events has brought unexpected supporters of same sex marriage out of the woodwork. First, a whole flock (100+ and counting) of noted Republican politicos have signed on to an amicus brief (an argument submitted as a “friend of the court,” or amicus curiae in Latin … who says it’s a dead language?) urging the Supremes to support same-sex marriage. Not to be outdone, today, representatives of a bunch of major corporations—Alcoa, Apple, Citigroup, Facebook, Google, Intel, Nike, REI, Starbuck’s, etc.—submitted their own amicus brief urging the court to grant same-sex couples the right to marry.

It’s astonishing: just one presidential election cycle ago, opposition to ssm was the political default, even for liberal folks like Obama. Now, a short 4 years later, the folks we usually think of as conservative obstructionists when it comes to progressive social issues are stumbling over each other to make the biggest, boldest statement in support of same-sex marriage. And these are important stumblings: some folks argue that these particular amicus briefs, coming from conservative politicians and staunch capitalists, may have real impact in swaying the court toward support for ssm. More impact than briefs submitted by the more natural allies of LGBT equality—human rights and social justice groups, professional fields like psychology and family services, etc.

On one level, this is wonderful, astoundingly good! Equal rights for LGBTQ people are not only being recognized by more and more people; they are being actively promoted by individuals and institutions long considered enemies to that very equality. But let’s not get so carried away by the exhilaration of being seen and supported that we fail to think about the implications of being seen and supported by folks of this particular political stripe. Now, I'm not the first person to have this concern—in fact, I just heard the African-American writer and activist Kenyon Farrow talk about very similar issues in a presentation at CU. But it struck me today in a whole new way as I saw these erstwhile opponents lining up on “our” side. 

To frame my point, I want to drift back a few decades to the feminist movement in the 1980s. I was teaching a course in the Psychology of Women, and one particular book sprung from nowhere to become the talk of the field. The book was based on what has been called “cultural feminism.” Briefly, this approach says that women and men are inherently different (a position that feminists had been arguing against). But turning the old devaluation of women on its head, cultural feminism argued that these differences are good. Women are actually superior to men, the approach suggests, in many ways that matter—empathy, social connection, a morality of caring, cooperative (vs. competitive) problem solving, etc. Remarkably, even folks who had previously opposed feminist aims loved this book, too. It promised the best of all worlds: you could claim a feminist position without alienating anyone.

Then, some feminists said, basically, “Wait a minute. What’s wrong with this picture? Feminism is a social change movement. If folks who support the status quo love what we’re doing, we must not be challenging much of anything at all.” As people began to analyze this cultural feminist position, the problem became clear. Cultural feminism was popular with supporters of the status quo because it reinforced long-standing stereotypes about women. Sure, it glorified those stereotypes, but as early feminist had argued, a gilded cage is still a cage. Cultural feminism allowed people who represented and wanted to protect the status quo to claim support for feminist aims while actually keeping women in their place.

You see the parallel here. Perhaps it’s time for us to say, basically, “Wait a minute. What’s wrong with this picture? The LGBTQ rights movement is a social change movement. If folks who support the status quo love what we’re doing, we must not be challenging much of anything at all.”

At minimum, we should be asking whether we cease to be a social change movement when our goal is to be assimilated to the status quo. Is same-sex marriage, like that Psych of Women textbook, so well received precisely because it doesn’t challenge the status quo? Because it buys into conservative principles, promising that queers who are brought into the institution of marriage won’t be causing any further trouble, making any more demands? Is “marriage equality” to become our gilded cage?

Now, I get how grand it feels to see Republicans and corporations arguing for our equal rights. That’s a refreshing change! But doesn’t it say something about how progressive the achievement of those rights will really be? Could their support be viewed, instead, as co-optation for now, a debt to be repaid in the future?

“Sure, let them in. That will make them more stable, like us. Make their families look like ours. Make them beholden to the same political and social forces that keep us in line. As long as they don’t do anything different with marriage, let them in. Give them this, and maybe they’ll forget about all those other pesky things they sometimes nag us about. Like immigration reform that honors LGBT families. Support for trans rights. Recognition of a range of diverse sorts of families. Support for homeless queer youth. Separation of medical benefits from marital status. The continuing battle with HIV/AIDS, especially for poor people. The links between LGBTQ people and other oppressed groups. Absorb and divide; divide and conquer!”

And then, once subdued by the gift of belonging, might we find we've indentured the movement for the foreseeable future? As Kenyon Farrow pointed out, might these newbie supporters argue (as they already did in New York, where he lives) that we owe marriage equality to them. “The Democrats could never deliver,” they could say. “It wasn't until we stepped in that the marriage equality movement was finally successful.” Might we be persuaded, and in the process sign on for a whole philosophy that we would otherwise reject? 

I'm not just being a grinch here. I know that being let in, finally belonging feels good. We all want to feel like we’re part of our community. But as a wise teacher/heterosexual ally once said (in a video co-produced by my partner), we all want to be part of the family, but sometimes the family is dysfunctional. I’m not arguing that we should refuse these folks’support, questionable though the motives and outcomes may be. I’m not saying that we should just stand down on the same-sex marriage issue. Plenty of people have much to gain by the success of this part of the LGBT movement. But I am saying that we need to think about this, think about who we’re signing up with, who likes us now. It says something crucial about the movement that these folks are joining in. It says that we are not dangerous, are not threatening to the existing social order, the status quo. And to me, that is a very sad outcome—some would say simply an unfortunate by-product—of a movement whose goal was initially precisely to change the social order.

The LGBTQ equality movement is not about to abandon this particular cause. It may be in for some though times, or we may be witnessing the approach of the end of this particular struggle. In either case, I beg us not to lose sight of our potential for changing the world—as opposed to being absorbed into the world as it is. We have other issues to address, and if we consider our cause won if/when we win this skirmish, we’ll have dropped out of the battle for social change and taken social acceptance as the consolation prize.

And the systems we started out to challenge will love us. How cool is that? (she asked, ironically).