Against Equality: Queer Critiques of Gay Marriage

Against Equality #1

by Ryan Conrad (Editor), Yasmin Nair (Introduction), Martha Jane Kaufman (Contributor)

While what feels like the entirety of the gay and lesbian movement is marching in unison towards some vague notion of equality, the Against Equality collective has been quietly assembling a digital archive to document the critical resistance to the politics of inclusion. This pocket-sized book of archival texts lays out some of the historical foundations of queer resistance to the gay marriage mainstream alongside more contemporary inter-subjective critiques that deal directly with issues of race, class, gender, citizenship, age, ability, and more. In portable book form, the critical conversations that are happening so readily on the internet will no longer be withheld from those with little to no online access like queer and trans prisoners, people of low income, rural folks and the technologically challenged. Contributors include Kate Bornstein, Eric Stanley, Dean Spade, Craig Willse, Kenyon Farrow, Kate Raphael, Deeg, John D’Emilio, Ryan Conrad, Yasmin Nair, Martha Jane Kaufman, Katie Miles, and Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore.

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"Against Equality makes the powerful argument that same-sex marriage is an essentially conservative cause, an effort to prop up a fundamentally unfair system. As an alternative, it offers us the inspiring vision of a truly radical queer politics, devoted to attacking injustice, not just allowing a few more gay people to benefit from it." – Walter Benn Michaels, The Trouble with Diversity: How We Learned to Love Identity and Ignore Inequality

"Rather than being merely anti-marriage, the book deliberately articulates multiple alternative visions – such as building and valuing our own grassroots familial 'networks of accountability' – thus edging us closer to true 'equality,' or dare I say liberation, celebrating our differences as queers. – Jessica Max Stein (Make/Shift Magazine)

"A powerful, moving read from a side often overlooked by mainstream society. A must read for anyone 'for' or 'against' gay marriage." – Steve Mason (California State Inmate/Queer Librarian)

[This Anthology] brings to light that a venomous black-and-white rhetorical split has developed on gay marriage. The dichotomous engagement with the issue is damaging to the cohesion of the GLBTQ community and stops discussions short. This collection offers valuable, if controversial, much needed nuance to a radically fractured debate." – Ericka Steckle (Bitch Magazine)

Genres: Queer, Nonfiction, LGBT, Politics, Essays, Sexuality, Feminism

96 pages, Paperback

First published September 1, 2010

About the author

Ryan Conrad is an Adjunct Research Faculty member at the Feminist Institute of Social Transformation at Carleton University. From 2019-2022 he was a SSHRC postdoctoral fellow in the Cinema and Media Studies Program at York University where he was working on a forthcoming manuscript entitled 'Radical VIHsion: Canadian AIDS Film & Video.'

Reviews

[Bryan Ball · Rating 1 out of 5]

Life is far too short than to waste time reading allegedly intellectual garbage like this...

[Stefani Robinson]

I don't....get it. So, LGBT people should not support gay marriage because by doing so they are promoting a conservative cause....wait, what? What the hell does marriage and equal rights under the laws of this land have to do with Republicans?

I'd be much more impressed if this book addressed the issue this way: Gay marriage, straight marriage, none of it matters. Why should the government be involved in ANY of our relationships? Why should it be the government's business who ANY of us want to marry? Isn't that the more relevant question than if gay marriage should be allowed or not?

Pseudo-intellectual bullcrap, and a vague concept about a supposed "vague notion of equality", thanks anyway.

[Amber Lea · Rating 3 out of 5]

I feel like the writers in this book misunderstand a lot. There's this common "either/or" argument running throughout all these essays that if you're for gay marriage you're against everything else worth fighting for...and therefore you're a classist, racist, transphobic a-hole. I think you can be for gay marriage and still give a shit about poor people and poly people and people of color and genderqueers and everyone else.

And let me clarify that I have no intention to ever get married and I have many issues with the institution of marriage, but I think gay marriage is a good thing because it will help SOME people for NOW which is better than helping nobody until you can help everybody.

This was tacked onto the end of the last essay as an afterthought a few years after the original essay was written, and I thought it was perfect: "We know that for many people, marriage, and the benefits it can give, can be a form of survival. We believe that people can experience an immediate need for the benefits marriage would provide and a simultaneous hope for more expansive solutions."

That right there is enough reason to not fight against gay marriage.

[Wendy · Rating 2 out of 5]

Last night, in an attempt to finish all the books I've begun by the end of the year, I finished this thing called Against Equality: Queer Critiques of Gay Marriage. One essay was quite outstanding, a couple were good, many made some good points, and some were so fucking obnoxious that I not only want to kill the book by slow, painful, controlled fire, but also rip it into shreds and hear it scream, then throw it from a mountaintop into a raging river, only to have it reincarnate just so I can kill it over again, about six times, in various Medieval and Inquisitional fashions.

I hardly know where to begin on this one. Let's start with the title. I admit that I'm quite baffled by the fact that I am less anti-assimilation that I am, but, well, I am. I don't think that being equal, or wanting to be equal, is a bad thing overall. This doesn't mean that I am going to be the same as my sisters, or they the same as each other. I can't make jewelry to save my life, for example. This doesn't make us unequal, unless we both enter a jewelry contest; it makes us different. In terms of laws, however, we both have the right not to be raped. This is simplistic, I realize. But as a lesbian who has never been particularly interested in getting married (until it became a big deal and I was told "no you can't"), and someone who jumped on the super-left/anarchist bandwagon of Against Equality before thinking it through more fully, and as someone who doesn't have much faith in our laws, and who understands intellectually (because I am white and therefore privileged) that equality doesn't really exist, I don't understand why someone would fight against having the same protections and rights, no matter how flawed, as other people.

One of the arguments in the book that I actually agree with is that organizations that focus on gay marriage (or repealing don't ask, don't tell, which is another story because I find that focus horrendous) do so often to the exclusion of much more equalizing (ha, that word again!) campaigns: for example, most of the essayists write, marriage is often used as a way for one person to be entitled to healthcare through union with their covered partner. What that obviously ignores, of course, is that many, if not most, Americans have no healthcare coverage to begin with. Should the focus not, then, be on universal healthcare instead? (And by "universal" I suspect they mean just in the US, because I'm not sure people on Jupiter need our kind of health care.) Because there are also plenty of gay people who are single. The gay marriage movement is also quite steeped in fantasies of the American Dream, and focused on home-marriage-children as equating to one's worth. It is a very white, upper-class movement. Many authors in the book call it a "middle class" movement, but there is little middle class left, so I'm not sure I agree with that. Kenyon Farrow's essay Is Gay Marriage Anti-Black??? is incredibly thought-provoking. Unlike most of the essayists compiled in this book, Farrow doesn't come across as patronizing, and his questions seem meant to provoke discussion and consideration, particularly by white people who might not have considered race in their talk of gay marriage, or in terms of our own privilege.

I agree that too many people focus on gay marriage as a panacea; I also agree, as some point out in the book, that this focus takes away valuable resources from really critically important programs such as those for queer youth, particularly those who run away from home and are shunned by their communities; gay centers/programs, including HIV care/outreach/support and education could certainly stand to have the kind of money HRC, for example, spends on the ceaseless gay marriage campaigns. This kind of money could help more people, and include those who don't fit the conventional Euro-American concept of male/female and even gay/straight. I get it that one's worth should not be based on whether they fall into easily-defined categories (though I admit to a lot of personal frustration in understanding some of the ways this is expressed).

So yes, some very good points are made in this book.

BUT... the tone. OMG, the tone! First question: who the hell is your audience? By snarking and insulting plain old lesbians and gay men ("gaysbians" -- I wanted to smash my foot in someone's face for reading that term; it was so contemptuous), the writers are not going to encourage us to keep reading and looking at your point of view. Mattilda Sycamore Bernstein, Hilary Goldberg, Yasmin Nair and Gina Carducci are particularly good at that in the last chapter. It may be that the tone is the most offputting part of the whole book.

Soo, how best to snark this book? ;) Why, you may ask, do you want to torture it so before putting it to rest? Hasn't it forced you to think? Well, yes, it has. But it pissed me off so much as well. Here's a quote from the introduction by Yasmin Nair: "...if a teen is unhappy or commits suicide because he/she is gay and cannot bear to live in a homophobic world, or because he/she is relentlessly taunted by peers for looking/acting gay, surely the problem, the very great problem, lies in the shocking cruelty of a world that will not tolerate any deviation from the norm." That's really apt, I think. I agree with this completely. But what Nair does and many of the authors do in their essays is throw out baby with the bathwater. If you can't get to perfection now, then any steps you take toward getting there are worthless and pointless. Not only that, but these steps are eligible for ridicule.

Many of the authors are way left of center, and are concerned with issues above and beyond gay stuff (or queer stuff), such as immigration and sweatshop labor. Many of these authors don't seem to grasp that just because something isn't important for them that they could still be important to someone else. I find myself agreeing with the implied sentiment: smash the state, don't conform to it. And yet, come on! If smashing the state were that easy, it would have been done by now. Many of the authors seem shocked that, gasp!! gay people and other queers are -- GASP! Be shocked now, JUST PEOPLE. And in America, that means many gay and queer people are -- get ready for it-- Americans!! I don't know about you, but I find that absolutely shocking. I mean, when you look at the state of the country today, at the financial disparities, the laws that are repealing rights to protest and speak your mind, or, if you're a woman, to control your own body (which is more complicated of course if you're a transwoman), then I don't know why the fuck these authors think that being gay or queer makes you a better person than the average grasping, consuming, me-me-me American. That you will understand or agree with leftist, state-smashing mentalities.

I find it offensive, actually, the call for creating all-queer communities, because it implies that all queers are the same, with the same mentality, the same wishes, and I have never fit with any community. I realize that for some people this is probably the result of horrible past experiences; I know I am lucky that the few family members I speak to have not actually shunned me or wished me dead for being gay. Oh, but the book? The book, you ask? Sorry... yeah, well, probably the stupidest argument in the book is that to destroy the prison industrial complex we need to stop sending people to jail.

Granted, I understand that the prison industrial complex IS a business, and that young black men are the most-frequently jailed, often even when innocent they will be killed (Troy Davis, for example). I am not saying that there are no problems with jail. But to call for an end to prisons in hope of rehabilitating people and giving them a chance to heal -- are you fucking serious? First, we can hope that the US follows Iceland and jails all the bankers. Not that I see that happening, but without jails, how could we even do that? ;) Second, some people are bad shit. No kidding. Some people are violent, beyond rehabilitation. Would we try to rehabilitate Charles Manson? Ted Bundy, if he were still alive? How about we release the KKK skinheads that are violent sex offenders into your neighborhood; don't worry, they'll be rehabilitated! Because everyone deserves a chance. Oh also, we should stop legislating hate crimes.

I am in no way saying don't reform jails; I am saying maybe not everything is so black and white as some of these authors paint it.

And for all their insistence on working for other social justice issues, only one mentions, in passing, animals (not animal rights) and only "clean air" is mentioned on the very last page of the book. Well, the Earth is spinning toward a rapid demise, so it seems to me a connection between the environment, which is much deeper than "clean air," is a hugely pressing issue. And it's not queer or gay or straight issue.

I have spent way too much time on this book. End result: interesting premise with some potentially good arguments overridden by snark, meanness, and an unwillingness to recognize that leftists are a very small percentage of the population and that until we get to a good place, a really fair place, we may actually need to take steps. Unless there's total revolution and upheaval, and the way I've seen leftists (me included) unable to get along with anybody else, this isn't going to happen. Dialogue is critical and many points in this book are good and worth listening to/reading. But you don't find dialogue with people you offend. I don't know about anyone else, but I've been an animal rights activist for years; I am so exhausted by fighting and screaming and yelling. I'm not saying I don't do it. I sure did last night after I finished this book.

Also, this book does not address older gays and lesbians; first of all, the font is so small my almost-70-year-old mom, who is probably more tolerant than I am in things like this, who is also a lesbian, would have a hard time reading it; and second, only two essays concede, briefly, that for some older couples who experienced a different kind of repression, where out and proud, of whatever kind of pride, wasn't too often shouted from the rooftops, marriage might actually be a worthwhile and meaningful thing.

Update: I would not have bothered updating this except someone liked my review and I got sucked back into this. I just read the editor blurb on goodreads, and wonder how someone who is a PhD candidate could edit a book against a (sometimes) repressive institution like marriage, when American universities are notoriously expensive and prohibitive to many, many people. Kind of like a middle-class thing and upper-class thing, isn't it? As an artist who travles to several continents to exhibit his work, he also seems quite privileged. I just find this ironic. And it's fine, we all have to do what we have to do, and for some of us, that includes marriage.

[Amelia · Rating 5 out of 5]

Man, what a refreshing read. I have a lot of thoughts about it, and will probably blog about it in length later, but there were some seriously bold and brave (and correct!) essays in here.

The short version of my reaction to this book is this:

Marriage has always made me feel weird. Realizing that I'm gay hasn't changed that, and I haven't been entirely behind the gay marriage movement as a result. But it's been hard for me to articulate why that is, exactly-- probably because all the liberals in my life (read: people who are very important to me, including some who are gay and married themselves) seem quick to jump behind the idea that if you're aren't for "marriage equality" then you aren't for gay rights.

Which isn't true at all. What this book does is critique the institution of marriage as a whole. Its contributors all point out that the push for "marriage equality" is really just a push for assimilation. One author (John D'Emilio) even says that "the campaign for marriage equality runs against history."

And he makes a compelling argument as to why that is. He goes on to point out that in the 1950s, it was a taboo to be unmarried, or a single parent, or divorced. Now, those things are commonplace. "The heterosexual lifestyle" (for total lack of a better term) is a lot more varied than it once once, therefore, and we should be celebrating varied lifestyles instead of just putting gay couples in this box that fits in with an old American ideal

Another argument that I found really compelling was this: Instead of giving more people access to an institution that *may* help you get health care (provided your significant other already has health care), we should be putting our energy toward causes that would offer equality to ALL-- not just those who happen to be involved in long-term monogamous relationships. We can achieve this by putting our fight toward a single-payer health care system, for example.

I don't know. It was really hard to argue against any of these arguments, basically. Which perhaps means that I'm a lot more radical than I am liberal, and convinced me that I should trust my opinion more, because I'm not the only one who thinks these things, even though life is really good at making me believe otherwise.

[Liz]

I am kind of hostile to this whole thing because being radically anti-marriage actually is the mainstream position in my social circles, and I guess I'm feeling a personal backlash to the backlash. I get frustrated because I kind of agree but think it's a bit of a misdirection of energy. why not spend your time actually working on the issues you think we should prioritise over marriage? working to dismantle the border or the prison industrial complex or get universal health care, rather than writing endlessly about how you're anti-marriage, full stop? why is this such a defining issue for so many self-defined "radical queers"? critique is necessary, of course, but at this point it seems like it's putting more energy into the same tired old argument.

having said that, isn't my antipathy also a terrible example of a knee-jerk hyper-critical backlash to any position that gains widespread influence? so I decided I'd give this a chance and so far it's mostly good and nuanced, with a few clunkers (KATE BORNSTEIN, I AM LOOKING AT YOU).

[Emma · Rating 5 out of 5]

this was so easy to power through!! a whole bunch of righteous and unapologetically brutal critiques of gaystream marriage campaigns.

it was refreshing to read succinct and accessible rants that progress (relatively) logically to condemn the reformist, civil-rights appropriative and privilege-consolidating arguments for gay marriage. these are campaigns that have cost the GLBTQ community and its allies A LOT over the past decade in the U.S. - in terms of time, money and also in terms of the severe limitations that have been put on public discourse (the "you're either gay-married or you're a homophobe" situation).

while this book is very U.S.-centric, the arguments presented are very timely in an Australian context where "Marriage Equality" has been the rallying cry behind a number of recent marches in downtown Melbourne; and on the federal-political scene the "issue" - further sparked by Finance Minister Penny Wong's recent announcement that her and her partner are expecting a baby - is set to be "debated" at the ALP's national conference in December, coincidentally the same month that Wong's baby is due.

ultimately this collection of writing challenges "a movement based in sexuality and gender" (Bornstein) to prioritise the fight against PIC expansion, the criminalisation of immigration, and struggle for racial+economic justice. even though i didn't agree with all the contributions in this book, the range of perspectives and arguments reaffirmed the liberatory potential of diverse anti-assimilationist queer politics.

[Amanda · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is fantastic and extremely accessible. Most of the essays were originally published on blogs.

The essays discuss the authors' very practical objections to same-sex marriage. Generally, they argue that marriage is a historically fucked up institution that shouldn't have legal privileges attached to it. Because most of the privileges marriage confers tend to benefit (or are only accessible to) middle class queers, the authors don't see same-sex marriage as being a benefit to a majority of the LGBTQ population. Furthermore, the singular focus on same-sex marriage by LGBTQ rights advocacy groups keeps life-threatening issues (like access to healthcare, housing, and employment) that happily-single LGBTQ and straight people face from receiving any sustained attention.

These authors don't advocate marriage inequality but question same-sex marriage's current importance to LGBTQ rights advocacy groups.

[Bryan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Presents essential dissenting viewpoints on what is now an even bigger debate (if that was possible). Kenyon Farrow’s essay is particularly stand out in its analysis of the perceived divide between GLBTQ and African American communities. I have two dissenting points of my own: 1) if you frame your policy position with the language “against equality” you are not making it any easier on yourself; 2) perhaps a position against marriage is the minority one in both queer and hetero communities. If the latter is true, it could be argued Against Equality is even more essential.

[Amy D.P. · Rating 5 out of 5]

It's so nice to hear queer voices bringing up logical arguments against gay marriage. This book is full of short vignettes featuring writings from different sources. Some of the vignettes are well researched, and some verge on the side of polemics. However, all the writings give thought provoking arguments of why gay marriage is not the fight that all queers are behind.

[Devin · Rating 5 out of 5]

An incredible, revolutionary compilation of queer/trans writers critiquing the false progress of marriage equality, instead calling for a critique and dismantling of capitalism-imperialism, racism, anti-Blackness, xenophobia, homo/transphobia, etc.

I have said for many years now that gay marriage was the tipping point for many "activists" and what I mean is: when they got gay marriage, they tipped their hats and left the movement. I have lived in the same damn city for nearly 8 years now! and there are people who still live here with me, whom I haven't seen since 2015 because they got married and abandoned those of us still carrying the movement to retire to their cozy, domesticated, heteronormative lives. Gay marriage has left a very bitter taste in my mouth for many years, and it felt so good to be affirmed in this amazing collection of essays.

There are those of us who do not care about gay marriage so much as we care about liberation from wars, capitalism, queer-bashing, cops, evictions, landlords, etc. In fact, if I had to make a list of 20 things that the queer/trans movement REALLY needs, marriage wouldn't even be in the top 30.

[kory. · Rating 2 out of 5]

i don’t even know where to begin. i keep reading about anti-marriage beliefs from queer folks, even though i’m not really convinced, because i’m hoping someone will say something that convinces me. it’s not entirely the stance itself that i have an issue with, a lot of what turns me off is the approach and lack of real-life solutions or alternatives. but alas. this collection is no different from anything else i’ve read on this topic. meaning it’s consistently underwhelming and sometimes utterly revolting. let’s get into it.

one of my biggest issues with the anti-marriage texts i’ve read is the lack of real-life solutions or alternatives. and these authors don’t really seem interested in solutions, just criticisms. it’s all well and good to criticize marriage, but if you want people to opt out of it and work to abolish it, you need to offer something better. and no, the simple lack of marriage is not better. it’s a lot of “instead of marriage, let’s support x and fight y” and nothing about what we can do to actually support x and fight y. it’s all words and ideas and endless judgment for people who don’t jump on their bandwagon despite the complete lack of suggestions of how to put their ideas into action. one author even mentions how they’ve been criticized over the years for not having solutions and their response is just “critique is part of the process to finding solutions,” and i find this interesting because several times throughout this collection, the idea that expanding marriage to include same gender couples is part of the process or a stepping-stone to further change is ridiculed. your criticism is “part of the process,” but actual advocacy work that did indeed result in change can’t be considered “part of the process”?

my second biggest issue is the contempt these authors have for other queer simply because they want to be able to marry their partners. and i’m sorry, i don’t care how many excellent arguments you have against marriage, aiming your guns at other queer people instead of the actual problem is when you lose me. the authors of this collection imply that queer folks fighting for marriage equality are self-obsessed, killing people, inherently racist, no different than right wing christians, engaging in “hetero-mimicry,” and pushing a “gay agenda” (remind me again who uses that kind of language?). and a very common theme that deserves its own section is the intellectual superiority--queer folks who fight for marriage equality are described as “single-minded,” unintelligent, “unthinking,” “clueless,” “ahistorical,” unimaginative, without a “modicum of sense,” “confusing” and “duping” “ordinarily intelligent queers,” and not having “intelligent strategies” (funny, because they accomplished their goal, while you supposedly enlightened queers did not), while those who backed a document arguing against same gender marriage were described as “activists and intellectuals,” which included the authors.

there are many other bothersome things about this collection, one being the all/nothing, either/or mindset all of the authors seem to have—if same gender marriage won’t solve all of the world’s issues, then it’s a worthless pursuit; if someone is pro-same gender marriage, then they don’t care about anything else; if someone who is pro-same gender marriage overlooks or ignores another issue, then it’s automatically because they support same gender marriage. one author even presents someone acknowledging that same gender marriage won’t solve “systemic problems of violence and institutional discrimination” but it will “make life better and easier” for queer people as an absurd contradiction—again, if it won’t fix everything, then it’s not worth anything; if we can’t help everyone, we shouldn’t help anyone.

somewhat related, the authors tend to speak as if they speak for all queer people, ironically while criticizing other queers for supposedly speaking for them—criticizing queer organizations for not representing them (if every queer person and their interests could be represented by a single organization, then there wouldn’t be endless organizations pertaining to queer issues) and declaring same gender marriage is an “incorrect priority” for queer communities, as if we all share the same goals and interests. one author poses the question “why should we fight for 1,138 rights for some people, instead of all rights for all people?” and it’s truly baffling. it’s easier and more realistic to fight for the rights of some people at a time, than try to fight for the rights of everyone at once. if it were so easy to just fight for all rights for all people, then it would be done already. but that’s not how things work—you take the necessary steps to build up to what your ultimate goal is. it is not all or nothing. this also ignores that some groups can fight for some people and other groups can fight for other people...at the same time.

another bother is how the authors concede the importance of same gender marriage, then still argue it shouldn’t exist. one author says they “fully understand” that queer people “want their love to be recognized” and “may want to reap some of the practical benefits” of marriage, another says they respect older queer folks specifically who “feel official sanction of their love is a chance for acceptance after a lifetime of oppression,” another still says they “believe in each individual and family’s right to live their queer identity however they find meaningful or necessary, including when that means getting married,” and another says they “know that for many people, marriage, and the benefits it can give, can be a form of survival.” this all begs the question, how can you possibly want to abolish marriage if you know, accept, and respect the importance and necessity of it for so many people?

sometimes the authors say things that are just...not true? or lack nuance? it’s kind of odd for a group of people who pat themselves on the back for being so aware and enlightened. it’s suggested that we prioritize the people who “need the most help” and what will “bring us the most allies.” this is confusing, because history shows us that those usually don’t go hand in hand. the majority of people can’t scrape together the bare minimum beliefs that everyone should make a living wage no matter what their job is; health care should be universal and free; school children shouldn’t be starved as a punishment for being poor; homeless people should be housed instead of hidden out of view; people should have complete control over what happens to their own bodies with zero interference from anyone else; i could go on. you’d think any decent human being would agree with those statements, but they’re actually very polarizing. rallying behind the most vulnerable generally does not result in gaining the most allies.

one author acknowledges that some states lack anti-discrimination laws for queer people, then going on to smarmily say that just because they can’t marry doesn’t mean gay people “can no longer keep their jobs”—if there aren’t laws protecting them from anti-queer discrimination, then actually that could prevent them from keeping (or getting in the first place) jobs. another author says queer activism “began with stonewall,” another still says “gay marriage simply has nothing to do with social justice.” one author says “universal health care could more successfully have been fought for state-by-state than could same-sex marriage” which makes me wonder, why didn’t folks do that then? if it was so easy and more likely to happen, then why didn’t it and why did same gender marriage? similarly, an author says the equal rights amendment “stands a better chance of making it into law” than same gender marriage, which we know now is not true. the 1970s saw the first legal fights about same gender marriage in the u.s. and it was legalized nationwide in the u.s. in 2015—6 years after the author said that. meanwhile, the equal rights amendment was first proposed in 1923, was approved in 1972, and only met the requirement of being ratified in 38 states in 2020.

one author questions “what groundwork for same-sex marriage had been laid when the first cases went forward in the 1990s?” which made me scratch my head, because in the u.s., same gender marriage cases/lawsuits date back at least 2 decades prior to that, as well as same gender marriage activism. john baker and michael mcconnel, known as the first modern gay married couple (1971), were involved in queer activism (including some of the earliest gay pride events, as well as same gender marriage activism) from the late 1960s to the 1980s. faygele ben miriam and paul barwick, another couple with a same gender marriage lawsuit in the 1970s, also were very involved in queer activism throughout the 1970-1980s. and those are just two very publicized examples of same gender marriage activists not just running to court in the 1990s without ~laying the groundwork first. this particular author boasted about being a researcher, educator, and activist, so this erasure is very confusing.

that same author also referred to the queer activists who “invented such things as domestic partnerships” to “recognize the plethora of family arrangements that exist throughout the united states” as “imaginative.” while i think all types of relationships are great and should be treated with equal standing, domestic partnerships weren’t created to dismantle or disrupt marriage as an institution or the government being involved in our relationships. they were functionally the same thing as a marriage—a legal contract between a couple, who needed to be qualified for marriage (outside of being the same gender), live together, and be each other’s sole domestic partner. it was a way for same gender couples to access the benefits of marriage when they couldn’t marry. they’re different, but functionally and intentionally the same thing. if your entire stance against same gender marriage is “people shouldn’t need a legally recognized state sanctioned relationship in order to access various benefits” then that should apply to domestic partnerships, no? neither one challenges the gatekeeping of various benefits, such as health care, so what makes domestic partnerships “imaginative” and same gender marriage backwards?

disclaimer time: i’m enthusiastically for dismantling the social hierarchy of relationships that places marriage at the exclusive privileged top, but i just don’t think getting rid of marriage will solve anything. (and no, marriage is not something i want or have ever wanted for myself.) it’s more likely that abolishing marriage won’t distribute those benefits to everyone, there will just be a new way to gatekeep them, and then we’ll be back to square one, thinking abolishing the thing that those benefits are attached to will make them available to the masses. for example, health care. if you don’t believe health care should be tied to marriage (and it shouldn’t), then advocating and working toward free universal health care should be the course of action, not abolishing marriage, because the latter wouldn’t give everyone health care, it would just take away one avenue of getting it. should we also get rid of free health insurance programs because they have caveats on who they’re applicable to? personally, i believe in dismantling and challenging what marriage is, expanding what it means and who has access to it, as well as lifting the marriage gate that keeps certain privileges (both legal and social) restricted from everyone else.

some other notes: i do think it’s important to note that not every queer person supports same gender marriage because they’ve been brainwashed into believing they need to marry or because they want whatever benefits. sometimes it’s about love, supporting other people wanting/having something you personally don’t, the social and legal recognition/validation, and the simple principle of believing it’s wrong to bar people from something that others have on the basis of a marginalized identity. the authors tend to assume the entire basis for same gender marriage is just about accessing benefits, and if we just make those accessible to everyone for free, then no queer folks would support same gender marriage because we’re supposed to be above wanting something the heteros cooked up or whatever. and that’s just not true.

there’s a lot of strawmanning—arguing against truly absurd things that i have a hard time believing were actual things that came out of actual people’s mouths. exaggerating, misrepresenting, and full on making up things to argue against to make it easier to criticize the gay marriage movement. and part of this disbelief is the complete and utter lack of sources or even direct quotes to back up literally a single thing they say. one egregious example is “gays and lesbians of all ages are obsessing over gay marriage as if it’s going to cure aids.”

sometimes the language the authors use is so...over the top? dramatic? unserious? i’m not sure the word i’m looking for, but i just cannot take them seriously when they use such juvenile and hyperbolic language. for a collection that is so concerned with addressing as many issues as possible, it’s entirely u.s. centric, with other countries being brought up as far as the authors can use them in their arguments against same gender marriage activists. and lastly, one author says “intergenerational sex” shouldn’t be “immediately stigmatized as pedophilia” and i just gotta say, if the intergenerational sex only includes adults and isn’t a grooming situation, then why would it ever be stigmatized as pedophilia? like....are you telling on yourself? is this a patrick califia situation where you’re defending gay boy lovers/lesbian girl lovers/nambla? ick.

[Gaetano Venezia · Rating 4 out of 5]

A decent introduction to the shortcomings of the marriage equality movement. However, the first few essays seemed to raise many of the same concerns with little support or explication.

——MJ Kaufman and Katie Miles——
"…the consequences of the fight for legal inclusion [of same-sex couples] in the marriage structure are terrifying. We're seeing queer communities fractured as one model of family is being hailed and accepted as the norm, and we are seeing queer families and communities ignore and effectively work against groups who we see as natural allies, such as immigrant families, poor families, and families suffering from booming incarceration rates. We reject the idea that any relationship based on love should have to register with the state. Marriage is an institution used primarily to consolidate privilege, and we think real change will only come from getting rid of a system that continually doles out privilege to a few more, rather than trying to reform it"

"We would like to see a queer community that, rather than appropriating the narrative of the civil rights movement for its marriage equality campaign, takes an active role in exposing and protesting structural inequality and structural racism"

——Yasmin Nair——
"I don't get why a community of people who have historically been fucked over by their families and the state now consists of people who want those exact same institutions to validate their existence. I think marriage is the gay Prozac, the drug of choice for gaysbians today: It makes them forget that marriage isn't going to give everyone health care, it won't give us a subsistence wage, it won't end all these fucked up wars that are killing people everywhere else."

——Hilary Goldberg——
"Why don't Madonna and Angelina, in their gay wisdom, adopt some adult queer artists and activists instead? For a fraction of what they spend on a handful of appropriated transnational youths, they could adopt queer artists en masse, and foster a global queer trust fund for the movement."

——Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore——
"hate crime legislation does nothing but put more money, energy, and resources into the hands of the notoriously racist, classist, misogynist, homophobic, and transphobic criminal so-called "justice" system."

"…the fight against anti-gay Proposition 8 in California…cost more than any other ballot measure in California history! Those maniacal marriage organizations spent $40 million on that shit—can you imagine what we would have if they took that $40 million and fought for single payer universal health care, or built an enormous queer youth shelter in San Francisco or Sacramento, Fresno, or San Diego? With the leftovers, we could create a collectively run, all-ages, 24-hour sex club with free vegan food, knock-you down music of all types, free massage, acupuncture, and health care for all needs, as well as a special area for training people in squatting and neighborhood redecoration projects."

[Addy · Rating 2 out of 5]

Two stars = it was okay.

The essays within range in quality to an astonishing degree and push this from 3.5-ish to 2 stars. Several essays are poorly reasoned but have some excellent thoughts; two essays are very well executed and deserve your thoughtful attention.

The idea behind this volume is great. There aren't enough voices involved in setting the national agenda and there are some decent arguments to be made for why gay marriage shouldn't be a part of that agenda at all or that it should be a part of a more total change in the way we're doing business. I'm not sure this small collection is worthy of its charge, but it is definitely to be commended for being out there in print where there's otherwise mostly silence on this question.

[Mock Shark · Rating 5 out of 5]

Amazing - I never thought I was super brainwashed by conservative white gay agenda - but I was. I will never support HRC or gay marriage ever again. This totally 180ed my thinking and I think these essays will do the same for you. Reallly great - short to the point, and most importantly from a diverse pool of queers who are standing up and not just accepting status quo and what sounds right. So good! I recommend everyone read this - queer and queer allies

[Greta · Rating 2 out of 5]

Some of the essays resonated with me more than others, but all raised interesting critiques that I hadn't thought of before about the marriage equality movement, gays serving in the military, and hate crime classifications. It could be hard to get past the way the tone of the writing could often make the reader feel attacked, but writers shouldn't have to pander to readers' sensitivity to get their point across, so I tried to be objective and stick with it.

[Dana Lee · Rating 3 out of 5]

It wasn't so much the writing style that made me like this but the challenges to my thinking that happened. It is written from an American standpoint, so being Canadian I didn't find all of the arguments relevant.

[Sky · Rating 3 out of 5]

I liked it. It felt like a series of glancing blows at a titanic issue that reaches beyond queer politics. It's worth a look for anyone who cares about the issue, and it's designed for friendly (non-homophobic) people to understand the need to refocus their energy for supporting queer community.

[6655321 · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is really more of a 4 star collection but because most of the material collected within is freely available online (even if the book is a pretty good deal at 8 bux, and a few pieces are slightly modified)which makes me err more towards "this is good but not great collection"

[Steph Mclean · Rating 3 out of 5]

I am still digesting this one.

[Colin · Rating 3 out of 5]

give this to yr mom/dad/square coworker next time they ask what yer goddamned problem w/ gay marriage is

[Rebecca · Rating 2 out of 5]

I was very excited when I found this book - and then just as disappointed when I read it. All of the essays are so much centered on the specific situation in the US that they become only marginally relevant for the rest of the world. That would be okay, but what annoys me is that the authors seem to be blissfully unaware of that! Not only do they make sweeping statements that seem to assume that all queers are faced with the same situation, but they refuse to look at or learn from queer activists in other parts of the world. Throughout the book, we read several calls to connect different struggles, to become aware of the entanglement of communities. But a clear line seems to be drawn when these communities are outside the US. Unless, maybe, if they want to migrate to the US, then we might think about considering them.
When I had gotten over this blatant USArrogance, I was disappointed yet again by how shallow and superficial most of the contributions are. Many read as spontaneous Facebook rants. It turns out that they are just that, taken from social media posts and printed as they were. And even though or maybe because I do agree with the general arguments brought forward against institutionalised marriage, I had hoped for an analysis that goes deeper than those rather well-known and obvious points.
If you live in the US and are either unfamiliar with radical queer theory or you just enjoy reading some rants in a paper format, this might be just the thing for you. For me, it wasn't.

[Evelyn · Rating 2 out of 5]

i wish this had a more detailed analysis instead of 10 different essays repeating the same exact point

[Abigail Espinal · Rating 4 out of 5]

Easy to digest, yet highly intellectual essays surrounding the Gay Marriage debate are presented with expert precision and phenomenal argument.

[Sally Wang · Rating 4 out of 5]

woah. this book hit hard.

"Assimilation is NOT liberation"
"Just because you are not someone's significant other, does not mean you are insignificant"

[Brandon · Rating 4 out of 5]

This quick and dirty little tome provides a much-needed intervention in the hopelessly polarizing and, frankly, distracting gay marriage debate (hardly even a debate these days, with most Americans resigned to the inevitable triumph of same-sex matrimony). As it's popularly portrayed, gay marriage is the cause of freedom-loving progressives everywhere while opposition to it is an archaic position reserved for right-wing, fundamentalist dinosaurs. This unhelpful binary has kept us from having deeper, more critical conversations about whether marriage and the nuclear family generally should be determining what kind of rights people have access to in the first place. Sure, sharing health benefits is great if you can afford a good health plan to begin with, but with 30 million Americans uninsured and 25 million more underinsured under the Affordable Care Act, surely this is a misplaced priority at best. Likewise, while visitation and inheritance laws indisputably matter, why should the "traditional" patriarchal, bourgeois family structure be the measure of who deserves to visit a terminally ill loved one or pass on their estate to the person(s) of their choosing? The answer, in a society where the nuclear family is now the demographic minority, is that it shouldn't.

In the modern political landscape, the contributors to this volume tell us, marriage functions in tandem with the "neoliberal" assault on working people's livelihoods first launched in the 1970s. As states tighten their belts and cut crucial social services, individuals and families of all gender and sexual persuasions are increasingly left to fend for themselves in a newly de-industrialized, de-unionized, low-wage economy. But while the effects of this shift are universally felt, they are hardly evenly distributed. Queers, who already make less than their straight counterparts, are harder hit--particularly queer women who work in underpaid "caring" professions, HIV/AIDS-positive communities, queer elders, trans people, undocumented queer communities, and queers of color. Among these groups, the realities of rampant poverty, homelessness, and criminalization abound. It's not clear that "marriage equality" alone, barring deeper social and economic transformations, will meet the needs of all or even most queers. Ditto for hate crimes legislation and military inclusion, topics addressed more directly in Against Equality's other two volumes. In fact, this unholy triad--marriage, prison-industrial complex, and military--is actually part of the problem, constituted as it is by sites of capitalist violence and profit-making which prey on the most vulnerable and marginalized among us.

What, then, shall we do? While there may not be a single, definitive answer to that question, there are some important steps that we can take if we want to reconfigure society and its institutions in ways which are genuinely inclusive of difference and organized along more egalitarian, democratic lines: critique and decenter the triad in debates about "equality" for queer people, recognize the structural interconnectedness of "our" struggle for sexual and gender liberation with other fights for racial and economic justice (in a word, ditch neoliberal identity politics), and get involved in fights to universalize the 1,000+ rights and benefits currently tied to marriage. Only then will queer (and straight) people have the security and freedom to define our lives, communities, and commitments as we, and not the capitalist state, see fit. The work of organizations like the Sylvia Rivera Law Project, Critical Resistance, the Audre Lorde Project, Against Equality, and (the now sadly defunct) Queers for Economic Justice show that this work is both possible and of inestimable value to those living on the margins.

Although the book could use a stronger editorial touch at times (whole words were missing in a couple passages, an issue which may have been addressed in AE's release of a single cumulative volume of its three-part intervention) and occasionally lapses into what, to this reader anyway, seems more like procedural anti-statism than the kind of nuanced social and historical analysis that shines in other sections, on the whole the good definitely outweighs the bad.

If you want revolution not inclusion, liberation not assimilation, this is the book for you.

[firesandwords · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is pretty good. I've read most, but not all of the essays in it. It offers a number of essays by a handful of authors critiquing gay marriage as a priority for the queer/lgbtq... movements. it deconstructs the common reasoning behind gay marriage as THE goal of queer communities and how that goal reinforces state recognition, state intervention in our relationships, heteronormativity, the nuclear family (and therefore capitalism), as well as marginalizing trans people, non-mongogamous relationships, people without 'legal' immigration status, etc. it critiques the dependency on the state to grant or deny privileges based on whether or not we decide to engage with an institution and social relationship that is a pillar of patriarchy,-normativity, capitalism and the state. the essays suggest that the queer movements started out as a revolt, and gay marriage has been a way to hide or move away from more radical tendencies.
The arguments are pretty simple and this book isn't necessarily the only place one can find them. but, the logic and research adds weight to the arguments and having them all in one place helps too.
It also avoids oversimplification and does't all-out shame people for choosing to get married, but does critique the privileges and problems attached to it.

[David Teachout · Rating 5 out of 5]

I actually didn't read this for a while simply because I knew my easy view of gay rights and the social change involved with it would be challenged. Once I started though, I couldn't stop. While at times amusing, particularly when reading an article that declares the push to legalize marriage equality is failing (it was written before the string of victories), the overall message is one of expanding a view of social justice and community involvement beyond isolated projects. This expansion means calling into question the institution of marriage itself and noting how it is both a conservative goal to achieve so-called equality of a traditional relationship dynamic but decidedly problematic to focus on government providing legitimacy to relationships that should be accepted on their own. None of this is to deny the work of the gay-rights activists. Rather, it is to remind people that the war on sexuality, which is essentially what the anti-gay is about, is the core issue and being so focused on derivative problems helps keep the underlying problem alive and well.

[Kathleen O'Neal · Rating 4 out of 5]

In this excellent first volume in the Against Equality series, LGBTQ writers explore the ways in which an excessive focus on marriage among mainstream LGBT leaders has often obscured the patriarchal roots of the institution, failed to critique the problems with using marriage as a way to allocate benefits to individuals in lieu of a strong social safety net, contributed to not entirely benign assimilationist tendencies within queer culture, and failed to recognize value in a diverse variety of human families and relationships. While this volume did not make me oppose same-sex marriage, it did help me to better understand the worthwhile critique of the institution of marriage in general being made within the LGBTQ community and I would definitely recommend it to anyone interested in thinking deeply about these issues.

[iimpavid · Rating 5 out of 5]

1) much shorter book than i thought i was getting

2) not at all short on quality critique of the "marriage equality" movement
This makes a whole lot of points that I've been mulling over re: corporate pride and queer politics. Namely that most of the United States (read: the ppl in the US with power) is content to give the poor little queers scraps as long as it'll shut us up. In hindsight this book makes me ask questions: what good, exactly, has winning the right to marry done for lgbtq communities as a whole? are we safer? are we dying less? are few of us suffering in poverty? do more of us have insurance and job security? what has marriage equality on its own done to gain lgbtq people equal protection under the law? marriage equality seems to have been something of a pacifier.

3)i wish i'd read it 10 years ago when it was first released