Marriage is Not Assimilation
Some activists have resisted the push for marriage equality by arguing that marriage itself is patriarchal or heteronormative, or that many leading figures in the marriage equality movement exhibit oppressive social attitudes.
But marriage is not assimilation, and even if it were, it would still be a right worth fighting for.
I acknowledge that marriage has an oppressive history. In many influential cultures, including but not limited to most pre-20th century Western cultures, marriage was the transfer of a woman as property from the control of her father to the control of her husband. Even today, in most cultures, marriage is still frequently deployed to reinforce oppressive cultural norms—not just sexism, but also classism and other practices which reinforce the dominant order.
But marriage does not have to be intrinsically sexist or classist. It can mean simply loving someone and living with them for the rest of one’s life—regardless of the identities or social positions of the two people involved. This concept of marriage is valuable and emotionally satisfying to many people—and it already exists, even though it sometimes comes with a bunch of oppressive baggage. Reforms can change the way our culture thinks about marriage, doing more to combat the oppressive norms than simply rejecting the whole concept ever could.
I acknowledge that there are people in the gay marriage movement who have problematic ideas. The same is true of any movement. Those ideas can and should be resisted without rejecting the idea of marriage equality itself. When one progressive idea becomes more mainstream, some people with other, less progressive ideas will be more willing to adopt it. This is a good thing, because it makes incremental gains more possible.
Working toward equality is important—regardless of the particular inequality at issue. Administrative structures should confer the same material treatment on everybody regardless of arbitrary personal variables like race, ethnic background, sex, gender, sexual orientation, class, ability or disability, medical condition, et cetera. This ideal is valuable even if it has never been fully attained by any major organization or government. It affirms the fundamental value of each human being and reinforces the idea that faultless demographic characteristics should not be allowed to artificially constrain individual choices and freedoms. Any violation of this principle, by any institution, should be resisted—and the bigger the institution, the more influential its precedents.
Marriage inequality is not the only such discriminatory violation in US law—not by a long shot—but it is such a violation. All should be fought. All are meaningful.
Marriage equality would set a valuable legal precedent. Perry v. Schwarzenegger, the ongoing suit against California’s constitutional amendment banning gay marriage, is almost certain to be appealed and re-appealed until it is decided by the Supreme Court. A favorable decision, especially one which applies the “strict scrutiny” standard under the federal 14th Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause, could expand official legal theory to encompass many more protections against unequal treatment, and also pave the way for the application of “strict scrutiny” to other marginalized groups.
The law has symbolic effects on society.* It would be great if everybody started thinking everything through individually and coming to rational conclusions independent of what the government says, but we don’t, and we never will. Humans naturally rely on heuristics to make judgments about acceptable behavior, and the institutions that surround us influence those heuristics—especially when they have very simple policies, like marriage restrictions, that can be interpreted without much effort. Governmental acknowledgment of gay and lesbian relationships is absolutely not necessary for those relationships to be valuable and real, but it unquestionably contributes to the widespread social acceptance of those relationships.
Finally, marriage equality would bring tangible benefits to real people.
State-sanctioned marriage is an easy way to guarantee important rights in a long-term familial relationship, such as hospital visitation, access to family health insurance plans, work leave to care for a sick spouse, and access to pension plans. Any ideological argument against marriage equality—from the right or from the left—must take responsibility for all of the families who currently lack these rights and the security they provide.
Fighting for these benefits is not a frivolous pursuit of heteronormative elites: it is a step toward improving the lives of gay, lesbian, and bisexual Americans in many social and economic conditions. And while it isn’t enough—not even close to enough—it is still something.
* Here are some examples of empirical research on the mere belief that a law exists shaping agreement with the law.
Sniderman and Piazza (1993) randomly presented survey respondents with one of two versions of a question about a law guaranteeing a certain number of federal contracts for racial minorities. The first version stated that such a law already existed; the second version stated that “Sometimes you hear it said” that there should be such a law. Of those presented with the first version, 57% agreed with the policy. Of those presented with the second, 43% agreed.
Rayens et al. (2007) asked members of a Kentucky community about their opinions of a ban on smoking in public places. Before such a ban was implemented, 56% supported it. Afterward, 63% supported it. Once the ban had taken effect, community members were also more likely to agree that smoking is a health risk – which suggests that laws can shape attitudes not just of the laws themselves but also of issues related to them.
Sniderman, P.M. & Piazza, T. (1993). The Scar of Race. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Rayens, M.K., Hahn, E.J., Langley, R.E., Hedgecock, S., Butler, K.M., Greathouse-Maggio, L. (2007). Public opinion and smoke-free laws. Policy, Politics, & Nursing Practice, 8, 262-270.