I think I turned my ‘lunch break’ into writing an epic rant about this via Facebook comments on my wall, most of which I’m just going to repost here as something ‘worth blogging about’…. my issue with the Jezebel reaction was that it attacked Shulman too personally which is just both immature and a shitty tactic (no matter how valid it is or is not.) Other than that I think it’s an absolutely necessary and very astute reaction to it, and all I had to add was:
Shulman’s argument IS the ‘rational’ one rather than the ‘cuz its groce’ or ‘cuz god says its bad’ argument - it’s just that the “logic” he uses, while valid, is the logic of white male american patriarchy. Which is, in a way, logical - it’s just offensive, dehumanizing, cruel, and Schulman is absolutely RIGHT in his descriptions of the institution of marriage as weapon of patriarchy as ways to control women/repress sexuality/maintain a certain system. It’s not even anti-queer, it’s just a straight up defense of our society’s eternal boys club. Thus (pretty openly, fuck, he basically says it) his defense of “heterosexual marriage” is a defense of “the patriarchal kinship and social system,” and therefore not only condones, but supports the whole system. Which seems so patently ridiculous, base, and depressing - what kind of fucking ASSHOLE would stand around saying that patriarchy is unquestionably right? What kind of unexamined bullshit life do you lead to say that? This is where I start getting mad - how can you be that inhumane?!?! This goes beyond the civil rights of a marginalized group to an inexplicable level of assholery that my queer little feminist brain can’t get my head around for the life of me.
So THIS is precisely why gay marriage is a feminist issue and a social issue beyond one of lgbt rights - it’s because the “logical” anti-gay-marriage stance is a defense of patriarchy. It’s because when one defends “traditional marriage” with those arguments, one defends every single misogynistic, repressive tenet of American culture. So gay marriage, then, stands pretty clearly as an idea that lifelong love/fidelity/commitment can have social benefits - a pretty “feminist” but also straight-up compassionate and humanist view of things - rather than as system of preserving patriarchal control. Being in healthy long-term heterosexual relationship with a man isn’t inherently antifeminist, and neither is marriage. It’s the concepts of that as an institution, of a man owning a woman, of marriage being about politics and power and purchase and NOT love or (consensual) sex or even dental insurance, that are so problematic.
I’m going to end up sounding like a hippie here, but no liberal/feminist/queer/whatever is rationally against “love” and “commitment,” or even against “filing our taxes together.” They’re against the patriarchal instution of marriage and all that it stands for — and the same with the conservatives, who are not even necessarily against gay sex (or willing to be so publicly since it MAKES THEM LOOK STUPID) or tax benefits, but rather in favor of the “traditional system.” Supporting gay marriage then - even if you are in a heterosexual relationship - is necessarily being against this as a concept for all partnerships, since it also inherently says “the reason why, as a normative heterosexual woman, I might want to marry a man, is because it seems nice to have some legal benefits to a loving, committed relationship, and because a public social symbol of our love and fidelity and existence as a ‘team’ for life would make me happy, not because I want his financial support or because my chastity needs to be preserved or because I want to make babies.” Gay marriage changes our society’s concept of straight marriage on a root societal organizational level, and this is apparently just TOO MUCH TO HANDLE.
And again, this totally revolutionary concept (relationships?! about love?! and equality?!) is pretty difficult to get across in straight relationships, since externally it still resembles like the patriarchal concept of it - man and woman, ok. But when you change the gender of one of those people, it suddenly becomes EXTREMELY threatening because the potential threat to the system is visually obvious, and this is why it isn’t about The Gays or me being a self-righteous queer, it’s about the fact that patriarchy is psychologically and emotionally damaging to 100% of the population (since it also does that bullshit where men obviously can’t be supported by their partner, male or female, or feel need or love, since marriage is all about owning a woman to fuck and make babies, which is pretty degrading to men, because I’d like to think y’all are more than penises. So Schulman’s argument is downright fucking depressing in that way too, since it basically is all, “Yo, I’m a dude, I just want to fuck some chicks, I got no feelings and needs, y’all are threatening me with this shit, go away.” )
Obviously, all relationships can go wrong and it’s not like all marriages are about healthy loving relationships and lifelong commitments, and it’s not like tax benefits are all that sexy or romantic - but theoretically, this should be the (totally OPTIONAL, not saying its something everyone should want/need) ideal, no? The idea of ‘marriage’ that I 100% DO support is that if people - regardless of gender, meaning I’m also supporting aformentioned new concept of heterosexual marriage as well - want to somehow incorporate their LEGITIMATE EMOTIONAL CONNECTION into society, or even just share the boring sorts of taxes-and-health-insurance-rights which have otherwise traditionally just been aligned with ‘man owns woman marriage’, they should be able to do that and have access to those political, financial, and social benefits, and this therefore goes beyond my own sexuality. That’s what “marriage” should be about, a way to integrate the productive emotional/sexual/personal intimacy between a couple into the larger picture of society - and therefore, a way that intimate connection between people can therefore help them deal with, you know, the bullshit that’s humanity at-large.
