On May 17, gay and lesbian couples legally married
in the state of Massachusetts. The day was historic.
Celebrations happened across the state, with few counter
protests. After years of struggle and months of particularly
strong debates, Massachusetts finally did what no state
before it had allowed.
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One wonders if opponents of same-sex marriage realized
that protesting at actual wedding ceremonies wouldn’t
help their cause. Like President Bush’s amendment
to openly deny same-sex couples the right to marry,
that kind of protesting could upset the very important
and somewhat sensitive “soccer mom” demographic,
which might not completely support gay marriage but
hates to see mean-spirited fighting against a nice wedding.
With ongoing homophobia, the gay and lesbian community
has many reasons to celebrate the right to marry. But
must we welcome every change put in place with this
court ruling in favor of same-sex marriage? One slight
change was highlighted in a front-page article in The
Boston Globe. The April 29 piece noted that companies
Massachusetts are reconsidering domestic partner benefits
due to the legalization of same-sex marriage. This change
will affect gay and straight couples alike, if they
choose not to marry. Places like Beth Israel Deaconess
Medical Center will end domestic partner benefits as
soon as January 2005.
Many activists and some politicians have suggested
promoting civil unions as an alternative to marriage
for gay and straight couples. The term “civil
union” has become a symbol of a new kind of separate
but equal, a status given to same-sex couples to keep
them away from the sacred institution of marriage. But
even during the debates on same-sex marriage at the
Massachusetts Constitutional Convention, state representative
Karen Spilka wondered aloud during a speech against
any amendment to limit same-sex marriage, “Maybe
it would have made sense a while ago to call all civil
marriages civil unions. It would take religion out of
it.” Alisa Solomon argued convincingly for civil
unions all around in a March 2004 Village Voice article.
Solomon clearly stated her case: “If government
must insist on offering special privileges to pledged
pairs as a means of social engineering and sexual containment,
let it provide them through a properly secular arrangement.”
The same-sex marriage debate certainly draws our attention
to societal values, and how we as a society deem certain
relationships acceptable while others are judged as
inappropriate, immoral or improper. Some conservative
politicians, most notably Senator Rick Santorum, R-Pa.,
have compared homosexual relations with adultery, bigamy,
even incest. To many opponents of same-sex marriage,
homosexuality is in fact a temporary sexual dysfunction.
One protestor outside of the Massachusetts State House
had a sign that said, “Homosexuals are Possessed
by Demons.”
With opponents like these, how could any self-respecting
homosexual not get riled? Many people joined the same-sex
marriage fight despite not having any interest themselves
in getting married. Many wanted the right to marry,
whether they used it or not. But now those same people
open the major gay publications in Massachusetts and
find endless pages of advertisements for wedding services,
along with a separate booklet that promises to tell
you all you need to know to get married. It is undoubtedly
overwhelming. Papers that once fought for AIDS funding
and broadcast information about hate crimes not being
reported in mainstream papers are looking less political
and more like a special issue of Cosmopolitan.
The dream of a fairytale wedding remains as popular
as ever. The more optimistic see same-sex marriage as
positive for the gay and lesbian community, as couples
wishing to marry now can do so and enjoy the many benefits
such a union brings. The more cynical, however, question
whether there is anything left for the gay community
to teach the straight world, beyond fabric choices and
hairstyles.
In a moving and somewhat controversial piece in The
Boston Phoenix last summer, scholar and activist Michael
Bronski remembered the early days of gay liberation,
starting in 1969: “We wanted to find alternatives
to the traditional structures under which we were raised,
structures that many of us found insufficient to meet
our needs and desires.” The goal was not to get
what straight people had, but rather to force straight
people to see an alternative to their traditional ways.
Bronski reminds readers of the feminist critique of
marriage, which many queer activists (including Bronski)
supported. Their argument “made clear that the
state had no business telling us what we could do with
our bodies (especially with regard to reproduction),
what we could do in bed or with whom we could do it.”
So same-sex marriage has become a reality, at least
in Massachusetts. One can’t help but feel there
is no turning back now, that states are going to drop
one by one until same-sex couples can marry anywhere
in the United States. And with each new marriage, we
can wonder what has changed. The jokes have been made
and the photos have been circulated: two little men
on the wedding cake, two fancy gowns with veils at the
altar. But as Bloomingdales opens late to promote their
special same-sex wedding accoutrements, we must realize
that as things change, things stay the same. Many weddings
are still about the product, and many couples are settling
for a relationship deemed acceptable by a government
that has resisted accepting them.
And good liberal homosexuals are faced with a debate
pitting Mitt Romney against Hilary Goodridge —
an easy choice. But the lost debate pits marriage against
civil unions, and means recasting civil unions as not
a forced alternative but a more open-ended option involving
less government. It seems with gay marriage going national,
civil unions never again will have a chance for prominence
in America. Gay marriage takes the crown, and civil
unions are the runners-up, briefly on screen but now
in the shadows as marriage walks in the spotlight.
