TheGodlessUtopian
19th November 2012, 22:16
Is my most recent article for the Kasama Project. I already argued about this at some length there and came to a sort of stand-still but even though, taking this into consideration, not a great deal was achieved I thought it would be interesting to see if anyone on RevLeft could take it further.
Here, in the United States, the results of the most recent marriage equality votes in the contending states of Maine, Minnesota (against a constitutional ban), Maryland, and Washington displayed fantastic results (all victories).So now the question for the queer community is: how to consolidate these gains and move forward in the remaining states, while the question for the revolutionary community is how to participate.
The heterosexual revolutionary left never had a solid foothold in the queer liberation movement. Instead most of the revolutionary groupings, from Trotskyist to Maoist, were content with joining in with the bourgeois jeers. However, fortunately, attitudes change along with the time. Now the left has been more active. While still only on a superficial level the question on the minds of the developing revolutionaries is what their “modis operandi” should be.
Despite the seesaw game of set-backs followed by victories, marriage equality at this stage in the struggle will press forward; where victory has been won, consolidation, where lacking, rejuvenation. The downtrodden will gather more signatures, initiate more petitions, raise more money, and, headed by their bourgeois leaders, try once more in another four years.
While this is what the largely liberal constituency will undertake is this what the revolutionary constituency should follow? The answer is deeper than a simple “yes or no”. Indeed to reach a mature conclusion one must analyze the reasons for defeat, the course of struggle, as well as the future of revolutionary agitation in a post-Marriage equality America.
A Majority Supported, a Majority Defeated
While the results of the elections in the contending states favored equality, and a queer supporting president was re-elected, it is important not to lose sight of the present; many queer people still lack marriage rights and the victories must be defended. Yet to earnestly understand we must know how the development of such struggles germinate and grow. Looking at defeat, will help us gleam this truth.
We have all seen the poll numbers at one moment or another. Time after time we see on television or on the internet that the majority of Americans endorse same-sex marriage. Much of the time this support carries over into individual state votes where when it comes time to campaign we see the majority supporting same-sex marriage along with the pro-marriage groups out-raising their bigoted opponents. So the question remains-why do most of these initiatives end in defeat?
No single answer for this is to blame. For an example: back in 2009 my home state-Maine-had high support prior to the election yet once the voting began they found themselves into a ditch, defeated. What is the cause for this outcome? We can look at the stilted pro-marriage ads, which often lack originality and emotional appeal, along with the fear mongering slurs rushed out by anti-marriage foes. We can examine crooked campaign tactics, support from individuals and groups which abide by their own agenda, and even people themselves if we wish to become bitter; ignorance satisfied by a few human right crumbs given by the state. Yet ultimately I think the atmosphere of homophobia which still lingers like a heavy mist, is a primary culprit.
In this list is a reason many might not suspect, however: the revolutionary left.
Why are they a reason? How they could be, you might rightfully ask. How could dozens of sects with no actual power, on either the national level or even the grassroots level, be to blame for the slow ostracize battles where the topic is something as widespread as the “gay marriage” debate?
Leftists, of course, are not a significant cause. Yet I rush to add them because too often is the Left’s history of homophobia hidden under the rug. Racism, women’s rights, anti-war, all of these causes the Left took up yet not queer rights. Hundreds of years of agitation wasted. A waste which even permeates into modernity: while the marriage equality activists undertook the rigorous, and even dangerous work, of laying the foundations for equality where was the revolutionary left? I will tell you: cadres and long term revolutionists were attempting to agitate in the Labor Aristocracy, infiltrate and wrest control of reformist trade unions, and participating in small-scale, largely “feel good”, anti-war coalitions such as UNAC. Drunken in their own spheres of relative acceptance few dared to venture out and assist in radicalizing new converts in a struggle which had been raging above ground for decades now.
Fused together as a whole we now can begin to see all the threads which lead to defeat. We can now see the path of struggle.
Struggling Alone
Now that we know where the largely heterosexual revolutionary left was we can move down onto the grassroots level, to the conditions in regards to actual agitation.
If you are like me than you have spent some time volunteering with your local equality group. If this is the case than you also know how lucky you are if you see any revolutionaries participate (even rarer if those revolutionaries are non-queer). To take an example: while I was volunteering in my state’s capital the leader of the local group was none other than a die-hard Democrat. The other volunteers, it is not surprising, were either a mixture of liberals or “Green Party” supporters (what I like to call radical liberals, for laughs). Only once, when canvassing, did a volunteer introduce himself as a “radical leftist.”
To even find any other revolutionaries in my state one would be forced to search in the wider activist community. Doing this I would perhaps locate a handful of Anarchists, only a few of which were queer, none of which, aside from myself, which believed in a new direction enough to try and radicalize outside of their niche.
Such is my point; the field has been abandoned to the reformists.
How can revolutionaries help to push the mainstream boundaries of gay struggle beyond gay marriage?
The Path Forward
So what needs to be done? Despite the “doom and gloom” feel of events nothing is static. More of the mainstream revolutionary community is slowly trickling towards the queer liberation movement, affected as they are by a handful of agitators in their ranks. Assuming the pacific stranglehold of complicacy is shattered and more heterosexual and queer revolutionist themselves become active, what do we, as a queer revolutionary re-groupment, advocate?
As in the past the answer to this is multifold and must be broken-down bit by bit.
A prevailing attitude among the revolutionary left is the question of why they should support marriage equality. After all, is not marriage a bourgeois institution? Does not legalization of such marriage serve the ruling class’s intentions?
I firmly believe that nothing is set in stone. While marriage, in itself, is certainly a bourgeois institution the revolutionary left cannot simply dismiss queer cries for equality. After all, if a revolutionary followed this train of thought one could easily dismiss past revolutionary participation in the civil rights movement as “bourgeois” because the entire concept of human right to begin with is bourgeois; after all, surely a white woman and a black man marrying is not essential to racial equality, right? Such is still reinforcing marriage.
I doubt any revolutionary would agree as many seem to possess more understanding of racial equality than they do of queer equality. No, such duplicitous thinking is a poisonous weed. Abandonment of revolutionary participation in the queer movement, as was participation in the Black liberation movement, is tantamount to betrayal of proletarian interests.
This is even truer when one considers the vital material necessities which are at stake to queer workers. Same-sex marriage is not simply a status debate but an economic one. Marriage carries thousands of benefits ranging from such categories as sickness, taxes, and visitation. The queer working class wants these demands and wants the ability to live their lives together on equal footing with their heterosexual peers. Denying such workers their demands on the basis of “its bourgeois” is thinly veiled heterosexism and queerphobia at its worst.
Carrying this concept further it is important to remember that revolutionaries, in their current state, cannot dictate to mass movements, especially those with the relevance as marriage equality. Detractors can moan all they wish but the fact remains that the movement is happening. The base-line demand for this movement is same-sex marriage and this goal is not going to “go away” or change form until queers demands are met.
Because of this revolutionaries should be participating and highlighting the roots of queer oppression to the largely queer liberal volunteers.
Revolutionaries should be revealing the forms capitalist oppression used against queer people, they should be engaging the non-revolutionary and informing them of marriage’s history, the nature of capitalism, and the history of the once radical gay liberation movement, prying them away from reformism.
America after Marriage Equality
There was once a time in history when the then recently emerged gay liberation movement was headed by revolutionaries and radicals. Yet due to their overwhelming queerphobia the Left refused to assist the burgeoning movement and in due time reformists and liberals of all shades co-opted the cause. However, with the modern upsurges and forward momentum the left has a chance to redeem itself. They have a chance to sweep into the marriage debate, radicalize voices, and attract new converts.
Assuming this transpires what would be the result? Assuming revolutionists are active, perform their duties well, and aspire with the movement and stand with the queer community until the end winning marriage equality, what happens?
Two things happen: a whole generation of mostly young activists is radicalized, older people enlist in the revolutionary struggle and the battle against marriage as an institution begins.
The first concept does not need much, if any, exposition; currently the left is weak, the queer equality movement is in full swing and leftist participation is dependent on capturing new blood to engorge the “Party” ranks which in turn lead to a queer community with a new goal, a new direction in mind.
It is the second concept; however, that probably needs some explaining: the battle against marriage can begin. What does this mean?
Revolutionary communists know that marriage is a bourgeois institution. One which we have sworn to fight as it helps uphold the capitalist mode of production. As we moved past our petty-bourgeois musings about same-sex marriage, however, and conceded to helping the queer working class grab what is theirs, we also educated the masses in our epistemology. Most importantly we allowed all people, regardless of attraction, to feel the confining nature of sealed monogamous relationships. We knowingly allowed homosexuals to partake in marriage, thus saving it from continued decay, because we could not deny our brothers and sisters the same rights we enjoyed. We did this so we could convert new energy for the destruction of marriage.
As any parent must understand, weathering a child’s tantrum can be a headache. The same is so of movements which desire conservative outcomes (marriage), of movements which no matter how we might wish it, we cannot force them to change their goals. However, as the parent knows that the quickest way to end the tantrum is to give the child what it wants, we as communists know that the surest way to repair our image is to revolutionize this otherwise reformist wave. We know that after the storm, when the hordes of gay and lesbian couples realize what a travesty marriage is, the workers who once fought for inclusion in this societal tradition will eventually be on the same level of consciousness as their heterosexual counterparts: marriage being not in their interests as a collective.
Another unexpected result of this unfolding would be the decline of identity politics among the queer community. For far too long such a scourge has affected the community dividing the queer workers from their non-queer counterparts. Satisfied as the queer workers may be with marriage such ideologies would dwindle as a major roadblock towards their integration vanishes. Partly because the main divide between the two vanishes the decline of identity politics, of “my need is more important than your need”, will gradually break as well.
Once this conclusion has been reached, and all sectors of the working class are on the same page, the battle against marriage, against a major pillar of the bourgeoisie’s favored productive mode, can begin in earnest.
Link to article: http://kasamaproject.org/2012/11/13/thoughts-on-queer-liberation-the-recent-elections-and-revolutionaries/
Link to primary response (with my rebuttal in comments under my same RevLeft username): http://kasamaproject.org/2012/11/13/theres-nothing-revolutionary-about-marriage-ish-repsonds-to-curtis-coles-article/
I think marriage equality is an acceptable reform, a democratic right that queer people deserve as much as straight people. When New York State got marriage equality a couple years ago I was happy, I admit, even though I don’t see it affecting my own life very much. But I’m just not excited by the movement for marriage equality….and more specifically it doesn’t strike me that it offers, other than as a kind of counterpoint, a way for revolutionaries to engage the gay, lesbian, trans, and/or queer communities. And so while I think it’s important to critique the left’s record on gay liberation, as I have certainly done before, I’m not sure I agree with comrade Cole that this movement is the best place for the left to be, or the most relevant place to understand the left’s failures or progress.
First, the social conservatism inherent in fighting for marriage is not just abstract. For instance in many places where people could claim domestic partnership rights — property, visitation, etc — gay couples who do not chose to transition to formal marriage could lose those rights. While the removal of one form of dehumanizing discrimination can be celebrated, it’s clear that marriage equality quite clearly extends oppressive capitalist property relations into the queer world, proving what Marxists believe about marriage, property, oppression and the state, and I find this hard to celebrate uncritically. It’s hard to forget the many straight revolutionary couples I’ve known over the years who refused marriage because they didn’t need the state to confer legitimacy on their relationships.
What I have noticed is that the wing of the gay movement that is most interested in marriage equality is the liberal wing, 100% in the thrall of the Democratic Party, whereas those in the gay community, and here perhaps queer community is more accurate, questioning marriage equality seem to be raising more interesting and more radical notions about queer identity and also about political struggle. To me, the marriage equality movement is profoundly liberal. Why did the liberal gay and lesbian community leadership choose marriage, as opposed to anti-discrimination in employment or housing, as a priority for political action? The gay establishment certainly chose a path of least resistance since the anti-discrimination struggle would have forced them to address the inclusion of transgendered people: many in the gay establishment have already indicated a willingness to jettison the transgendered for political expedience’s sake.
(And far from Obama coming out as a “pro-queer” president, what I think he came out as is a capitalist politician who knew a quick way to buy millions of votes with cynical grandstanding. Obama made a political calculation that helped him win an election. Obama’s actions on removing DADT discrimination in the military actually successfully bought support for U.S. imperialism in the gay community. I have seen this repeatedly.)
Leftwing lesbian intellectual Sarah Schulman writes
(http://www.prettyqueer.com/2012/05/09/the-problems-inherent-in-marriage-itself/):
“The continued distorted representation of our lives in mainstream arts and entertainment coupled with pervasive familial homophobia, pressured many LGB people into abandoning or perhaps forgetting about the goal of an expanded society. In a sense we were “bullied” into letting the society change us. The bait was that the more we appeared to mirror heterosexual family structure, sexual mores and consumer patterns, the more they would accept us. In this way, instead of changing society, society changed us – and – on the surface- we now have lost a great deal of our specificity and are so recognizable to straight people that even the most powerful heterosexual in the world, Barack Obama is confidently unthreatened enough to endorse equal marriage rights.
What this does not address, however, are the problems inherent in marriage itself. we all know that 50% of heterosexual marriages end in divorce. So, clearly marriage is not working as an institution. Now that gay people are fitting themselves into a dysfunctional box in order to win approval, our futures will surely be as strewn with disappointment, legal battles and failure to conform that heterosexuals endure, even with their constant advocacy by film and television, and the profound privileges given to them by their families. In this way we are living in the gay version of the 1950′s. But the 1960′s are just around the corner. Inevitably these conservatizing trends will again explode into a new sexual revolution, collective living, and a desire for liberatory feminism. I just hope I live long enough to see it.”
Although he doesn’t break from thinking about these issues in terms of reforms, AIDS activist Ian Awesome writes (http://hivster.com/?p=6315) about the limitations of marriage equality and the class problems inherent in it:
EVERYTHING Sucks. Not Just Marriage Inequality.
The benefits of getting married in the US are legion. If you’re married you can put your spouse on your health insurance. Is your lover a foreign national? No problem! Marry them and they can stay. Inheritance rights are wrapped up in the issue of marriage– afraid your family will steal the estate that should go to your partner? Get hitched! These reasons, and many more, are the ones that get thrown against my disdain for spending resources on marriage equality….But is marriage really the way to accomplish those goals? Think about it. Should we really be telling people that the only way they can be with their loved ones is to enter into a binding, state-validated contract?…Isn’t the real problem there that we need immigration reform?
Health care is an obvious one. I had a prominent blogger actually say to me that she was working for marriage equality so that she could get health care through her wife’s plan. Ok. It’s legit to need health care. However, I can’t help but think that in of itself is silly. The only way for us to get medical care is to… romantically commit to someone for life? What? Isn’t the real problem that we need universal health care?
I could go on and on. Homeless queer youth! Suicide! The scalping of AIDS patients by big pharmaceuticals! And yet the conversation is centered around how soon I could potentially throw a bachelor’s party.
That’s not right.
No! No Benefits For You Until You Get Yourself A Man!
See, the problem with marriage is its exclusionary nature, as the queer community has clearly taken note of. We’ve been excluded from it for so long perhaps the majority of us have not realized that we’re not the only people who go without these benefits bestowed upon those who choose to marry. …
Pay No Attention To The Fat Cat Behind The Curtain
Why are we, then, so focused on marriage? It’s not immediately clear… until you look at LGBT leadership. Or rather, gay white male leadership. In our vast, diverse group of individuals that touches every single culture on this planet there seems to be a dearth of “commoners” who rise to positions of power and authority in the organizations who are supposed to be advocating for our interests….If you look at the leadership of most major organizations, it’s pretty homogeneous. Rich white gay men are calling the shots. What do they care about universal health care? They have their own. Income inequality helps them stay ahead and they are no more likely to assist the common queer in being successful, healthy, and happy than Mitt Romney. All they will give us will be marriage….In fact, you might even say that these rich gay white men and the corporations that fund their organizations don’t want true income equality and universal health care. After all, that might require they pay more taxes.
Shhh. Just think about getting married instead. Isn’t that nice?
Another World Is Possible! I Think I’ll Live In It Without Marriage.
A lot more thought-provoking arguments can be found at the queer site Against Equality (http://www.againstequality.org/about/marriage/).
Gay marriage apes hetero privilege and allows everyone to forget that marriage ought not to be the guarantor of rights like health care. In their constant invoking of the “right” to gay marriage, mainstream gays and lesbians express a confused tangle of wishes and desires. They claim to contest the Right’s conservative ideology yet insist that they are more moral and hence more deserving than sluts like us. They claim that they simply want the famous 1000+ benefits but all of these, like the right to claim protection in cases of domestic violence, can be made available to non-marital relationships.
We wish that the GM crowd would simply cop to it: Their vision of marriage is the same as that of the Right, and far from creating FULL EQUALITY NOW! as so many insist (in all caps and exclamation marks, no less) gay marriage increases economic inequality by perpetuating a system which deems married beings more worthy of the basics like health care and economic rights.
While I wouldn’t say I oppose marriage equality, I find these arguments from the left exciting, and I think here is discussion revolutionaries should be engaging in. Is the marriage equality movement actually radicalizing young people? Or doing something else?
My response to this:
Hello Ish and again I thank you for your well-thought out post which you clearly put some time and effort into writing. Because there is so much to cover I will jump right into the bulk of my arguments…
You said:
“I’m not sure I agree with comrade Cole that this movement is the best place for the left to be, or the most relevant place to understand the left’s failures or progress.”
To this I need to not so much critique as I need to clarify. While I strongly believe in the objective of the queer liberation movement, with me being a queer liberationist, I do not mean to imply that the queer movement itself is the best place for the left. Indeed the queer movement is merely a area of interest which the left should be engaged in. To this the left needs to implant themselves among all oppressed groups (Muslims, racial minorities, woman, etc). My focus on the queer movement in this article was an effort to try and uncover some of the ways this might be done; much is the same of the left’s failure in this regard: I did not intend, nor did I ever say, that to understand the left’s failures in general one must understand their failures in the queer spectrum. While this area can give the left a glimpse of its failing’s one must truly look to many areas and not just one.
Moving on, you said:
“For instance in many places where people could claim domestic partnership rights — property, visitation, etc — gay couples who do not chose to transition to formal marriage could lose those rights.”
While for those couples it would be unfortunate I am not sure I see the validity in this argument. First of all, the couple being in a civil union means that they follow what we might call the bourgeois nuclear family structure; meaning they already have property in mind. Secondly, if they are in such a union transferring to marriage would only benefit them: why would they remain in a civil union if a marriage offers more benefits? I think it is quite clear they intend to remain together (since they went through the procedure to become civil partners). Them “upgrading” to marriage would be the rational thing to do.
“…it’s clear that marriage equality quite clearly extends oppressive capitalist property relations into the queer world, proving what Marxists believe about marriage, property, oppression and the state, and I find this hard to celebrate uncritically.”
True, but no one is saying such should be celebrated uncritically. As I explain in my original article battling for marriage equality is a means to an end, not an end in itself. While the “extension” of property relations is hard to swallow as a Marxist it must be remembered that those couples living together already, many for many years if not decades, have already moved their relationship to the extent where all of their belongs and property are informally intertwined. Denying such property recognition to queer couples (in this case homosexual) would also jeopardize post-death property inheritance. To exemplify this: I recently attended a Queer Trans Youth Summit where one of the speakers told of early in her legal career she would frequently receive phone calls from gays and lesbians who had their partner pass away. These people often asked her why after their partner’s death all of their (the deceased partner) personal possessions and property were being repossessed. Obviously they were quite distraught. The answer was that because they weren’t married the state did not recognize their relationship was a legitimate union. While I am sure you have heard such stories before the point stands that are we, as queer revolutionaries, to stand against this event not occurring simply because we have an idea, a far flung belief, in how the future should be organized? Clearly I think differently and advocate that before property relations as a whole can be attacked or broken apart the proletariat of all oppressed groups must be allowed to manage social-capital on the same level as their heterosexual peers. The old phrase comes to mind: you do not know what you have until it is gone. Likewise you cannot fight against something until you have known it and understand it, until the feeling of inadequacy has been erased.
“It’s hard to forget the many straight revolutionary couples I’ve known over the years who refused marriage because they didn’t need the state to confer legitimacy on their relationships.”
I salute people who are able to be in committed relationships without their union being given “legitimacy” by some higher power. However it is only somewhat crude of me to point out the reality of the situation by saying that such couples are setting themselves up for disappointment if something were to happen, if they lacked a certain right which would only be granted to them through recognition. Secondly these couples are heterosexual hence they have more societal support for being able to remain as they are without an absurd amount of difficulty. Gay couples, as I do not need to remind you, lack this critical factor thus making it an unequal comparison.
Following this you spoke,
“What I have noticed is that the wing of the gay movement that is most interested in marriage equality is the liberal wing, 100% in the thrall of the Democratic Party, whereas those in the gay community, and here perhaps queer community is more accurate, questioning marriage equality seem to be raising more interesting and more radical notions about queer identity and also about political struggle.”
Essentially you are saying there is no revolutionary wing, this is a concept I agree with and took efforts to expose in my entry. But the insinuation you are making is that because they are enthralled to the Democratic Party this unidentified wing is unsuitable for contributing real change to the political struggle. While I do not necessarily disagree this is the other point I was trying to make in my entry: they, the wing fighting for equality, have been misled by reformist bodies. They have barreled towards this goal yet while doing so they have been ensnared by liberal policies. We as revolutionaries, especially the heterosexual majority as I have outlined, have abandoned those people who would be most susceptible to radical left-wing theory.
As for your personal observation I cannot offer anything but my own anecdotal experience which lays claim to the opposite: since politically I am a queer liberationist I also participate in the struggle to prevent HIV/AIDS. So, needless to say, earlier this summer I attended the Campaign to End AIDS Youth Caucus. While there protesting I visited a group of transgender activists who worked in black working class neighborhoods. These people worked with sex workers helping them stay safe while engaging in their work and offering them console in transitioning to the gender they so wished to be. While these individuals told their heart wrenching stories I nonetheless saw great enthusiasm for marriage equality. Despite the fact that the workers here had transitioned from male identities towards female identities they still believed in the concept of marriage equality. Why? Unity, understanding the concrete realities of their fellow workers? It is hard to say but from my own accounts I do not think that certain segments of the oppressed sexuality community are gravitating towards more progressive stances than others.
“To me, the marriage equality movement is profoundly liberal. Why did the liberal gay and lesbian community leadership choose marriage, as opposed to anti-discrimination in employment or housing, as a priority for political action?”
Who is the ‘gay leadership’? You speak as though there is a single united group of gays and lesbians who make all the decisions instead of a scattered net of groups. What I believe you forget is that nothing in history is static, everything is in constant motion. The objective today is marriage. The objective of yesteryear was housing and anti-discrimination. This is not to say that living quarters are plentiful and discrimination is non-existent; to the point the abnormally high rates of queer youth homelessness attest to just how awful things are currently.
Continuing to expand on this point you said:
“The gay establishment certainly chose a path of least resistance since the anti-discrimination struggle would have forced them to address the inclusion of transgendered people: many in the gay establishment have already indicated a willingness to jettison the transgendered for political expedience’s sake.”
I believe in ebb and flow-meaning-I never take for granted what happened in any historical moment. I think that the reason the objective today is marriage is because not because the gay community chose the path of least resistance (because fighting the conservative backlash and interpersonal struggles certainly did not lead to an easier time by any means) but because they were forced to after the AIDS plague took many wonderful people from us. Is it not reasonable to assume that after so many gay men died from AIDS (in part, and though I hate to sound like a Republican fearmonger, because of the non-monogamous culture which homosexuals had engaged in) the community would, one at a time, come to the conclusion that the only way to survive as a community, keep the civil rights ball rolling (especially after the Left ditched them), and prevent massive setbacks would be to reorient towards more “acceptable” goals?
Instead of unsafe loose relationships, which increased the risk for contracting the dreaded virus, “new” monogamous relationships were adopted where one man would select another man to be his life partner. The era of “Free Love”, it seemed, was over. As the community settled into these new roles (which included an elimination of drug use, this is seen, admittedly, as early as the Gay Liberation Front) it would then be only reasonable to assume that the next logical step would be to “authenticate” such relationships. Hence, this is why, I think, we have the goal of marriage as the standard.
Now, I do not think that the marriage struggle is more important than anti-discrimination as a rule (though homosexuals not being allowed to marry is discrimination of a kind). Yet I do believe that lacking the absence of an organized struggle with the same support as marriage, anti-discrimination work, in the vague, is simply not as viable right now, especially when the temporary weakening of the ultra-reactionary concept of “one man, one woman” is more prevalent; to take it further we can say that not only is the marriage struggle better funded and more public but it has a ripple effect on the anti-discrimination movement, namely, equality and the threat of a good example.
Agreed you might be surprised to know that I agree with much you say. For instance: We must battle alongside transgender people for anti-discrimination measures, equal treatment in the workplace, and where no other more progressive cause exists, a revolutionized effort at attaining marriage.
(For a quizzical piece of mine which I wrote some time earlier, where my views have since changed some, see here:
http://thequeerproject.wordpress.com/2012/07/19/the-state-of-international-queer-liberation/ )
Now for the president:
“(And far from Obama coming out as a “pro-queer” president, what I think he came out as is a capitalist politician who knew a quick way to buy millions of votes with cynical grandstanding. Obama made a political calculation that helped him win an election. Obama’s actions on removing DADT discrimination in the military actually successfully bought support for U.S. imperialism in the gay community. I have seen this repeatedly.)”
When I say a pro-queer president I meant it in a broad understanding: he is not as pro-gay as he is not anti-queer on the level of the Tea Party/Republicans. He has displayed this several times. First in his clear statement some years ago where he said that he believed marriage was between a man and a woman and then more recently where he only came out in support of queers because his vice president let his mouth run and so he was forced to support the queer struggles by default, least risk embarrassment and losing a voting bloc.
Onwards once more, you quotes a couple paragraphs concerning the position of queer intellectual Sarah Schulman. Summing up her conclusion she argues that queer people were “bullied” into adopting heterosexual lifestyles and that since marriage as an institution is failing it doesn’t make sense why queer people should fight for inclusion in such a historical cornerstone.
From my previous rebuttals you know that I do not take the position that anyone was “bullied” into adopting any kind of life objectives. I take the opposite road and say much of the reason why the goals are they are because of unfortunate circumstance (the outbreak of AIDS). Besides this point, the idea that any large community can be bullied, especially one such as the queer community which has a large history of violent bullying, can be seduced while they were making some headway is not a sound concept. To me it seems that Sarah was examining things in a static frame of mind and perhaps had a chip on her shoulder against elements of the heterosexual establishment. If we were to be bullied into adopting any such straight institutions it would be more logical to say that we would have adopted such initiatives before the so-called assimilation, before even the emancipatory actions at Stonewall.
Her second point has more of a relevant edge, however. After all, why should queer people fight for entrance into this institution when marriage has proven itself to be incapable of maintaining itself? I believe it was Bishop Gene Robinson that advanced the position that allowing gays and lesbians to marry would in fact save marriage. So why prolong things?
Now, I do not advance such a position, per se. I take the position that marriage, as an institution, is in a state of decay. This decay is perpetual and can only truly fail (I.E. collapse) when society enters into a fundamentally different direction (socialism). While capitalism still reigns and traditional American values still enjoy widespread praise, can any such institution, especially, that which has the legacy of marriage, truly collapse? I think not (though to be clear, in my original post I maintained that allowing queers to marry would prevent further decay. The two are different).
Keeping in mind that marriage itself will not simply cease to exist one day on its own, despite the high rates of failures, it is important to know that following this route does not mean dysfunction on the same level as heterosexual unions; after all, queer couples must adopt thus making a great feature of divorce, custody rights, a less seen event in comparison (If a relationship is failing than it is not likely that said couple will adopt). While it is true that sooner or later decay will affect the homosexual pillar of marriage such is part of the plan; development must be allowed to take its natural course. There is no perfect structure for interpersonal human interaction. There are better systems, yes, but we must strive towards those systems through collective experience. The whole point about my article, remember, is that before marriage can be attacked on a whole, the entire populace must be on the same metaphorical page (why they must be on the same page I have explained before in regards to the current weight of movement).
Next up you quote friend and fellow activist Ian Anderson. Ian’s position is that the movement towards marriage equality stems not from the necessity for survival but from cooption on the part of white “middle class” males; it is, in short, an argument based on a group’s class position.
We are Marxists and this, at first glance, appears to be a sound argument. More so it has an air of truth. Indisputably there are many gay white males in the modern movement. Yet is this the cause for the reformist goal (marriage)? I believe not.
As I allured to this-white middle class males controlling the movement-is something which is more recent in addition to a phenomena spurred on by the mass media. During the stonewall rebellion, for instance, a great many of the participants were persons of color. This was before the movement had declined. One could place part of the blame on the heterosexual revolutionary left; in their rush to stand aside Black and minority nationalities they made inroads but squandered these links when it came time to decide if they were to assist in the gay liberation movement. This, their refusal to help and promote multi-racial leadership of the early liberation groups, contributed towards the decline.
Yet the fact remains: the Left abandoned the queers and soon reformist leadership, headed by reformist and dominant racial groups, seized control. So while it is not incorrect by any means to assert that the reason for marriage is the result of white influence it does jump the gun a bit and it ignores the hugely influential course of events which I explored earlier (AIDS and survival as a free community).
However, Ian goes on to expound the notion that it is not a variety of grassroots campaigning over the course of decades which to marriage equality as the goal but instead the belief that it is corporations which fund such endeavors because it channels energies away from revolutionary objectives and into more socially acceptable ones.
Again this has a ring of truth. Corporations certainly do fund queer figureheads and groups, as evidenced by any large city’s gay pride parade and such shows in the existence of conservative queer groups. Still such promotes the theory that through the usage of a few people the ruling class can divert radical energy to other sources. Do people like Dan Savage and Ellen DeGeneres have so much power? I think not.
It is a very one-sided theory which assumes much on the part of a few people which were only able to gain power due to a series of unfortunate events prior to their emergence.
Much in the same vein the quote sections from Against Equality are much similar to the vague and unrealistic demands. They rail against the inequalities perpetuated by marriage and offer some musings about sexual freedom to convolute the process. Simply said, however, such is, again, part of modern capitalism in our current epoch. Fighting against these inequalities are important but doing so while many millions crave the protections inherent within is ludicrous. Eventually the system will come to the point where it can be fought to the death but such is not the time now.
Concluding, attaining marriage equality is vital because it is a necessary step in progress. It is a gate way towards future organizing and radicalizing. While pending on a young person’s family it may not be the most polarizing concept it is the most talked about, it is the stepping stone towards further talk and debate.This is why it is vital that revolutionaries intervene in this process.
I relate this struggle to that of Leninism in that in the same way socialism (the socialist state) is an absolutely necessary step towards communism, one that Anarchists (anti-marriage people) wish to skip, marriage equality is a necessary step towards its destruction. While some may wish to skip socialism (marriage equality) and skip straight towards communism (marriage destruction) such simply is not possible.
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Well, that is it. I look forward to hearing the varying opinions.
Here, in the United States, the results of the most recent marriage equality votes in the contending states of Maine, Minnesota (against a constitutional ban), Maryland, and Washington displayed fantastic results (all victories).So now the question for the queer community is: how to consolidate these gains and move forward in the remaining states, while the question for the revolutionary community is how to participate.
The heterosexual revolutionary left never had a solid foothold in the queer liberation movement. Instead most of the revolutionary groupings, from Trotskyist to Maoist, were content with joining in with the bourgeois jeers. However, fortunately, attitudes change along with the time. Now the left has been more active. While still only on a superficial level the question on the minds of the developing revolutionaries is what their “modis operandi” should be.
Despite the seesaw game of set-backs followed by victories, marriage equality at this stage in the struggle will press forward; where victory has been won, consolidation, where lacking, rejuvenation. The downtrodden will gather more signatures, initiate more petitions, raise more money, and, headed by their bourgeois leaders, try once more in another four years.
While this is what the largely liberal constituency will undertake is this what the revolutionary constituency should follow? The answer is deeper than a simple “yes or no”. Indeed to reach a mature conclusion one must analyze the reasons for defeat, the course of struggle, as well as the future of revolutionary agitation in a post-Marriage equality America.
A Majority Supported, a Majority Defeated
While the results of the elections in the contending states favored equality, and a queer supporting president was re-elected, it is important not to lose sight of the present; many queer people still lack marriage rights and the victories must be defended. Yet to earnestly understand we must know how the development of such struggles germinate and grow. Looking at defeat, will help us gleam this truth.
We have all seen the poll numbers at one moment or another. Time after time we see on television or on the internet that the majority of Americans endorse same-sex marriage. Much of the time this support carries over into individual state votes where when it comes time to campaign we see the majority supporting same-sex marriage along with the pro-marriage groups out-raising their bigoted opponents. So the question remains-why do most of these initiatives end in defeat?
No single answer for this is to blame. For an example: back in 2009 my home state-Maine-had high support prior to the election yet once the voting began they found themselves into a ditch, defeated. What is the cause for this outcome? We can look at the stilted pro-marriage ads, which often lack originality and emotional appeal, along with the fear mongering slurs rushed out by anti-marriage foes. We can examine crooked campaign tactics, support from individuals and groups which abide by their own agenda, and even people themselves if we wish to become bitter; ignorance satisfied by a few human right crumbs given by the state. Yet ultimately I think the atmosphere of homophobia which still lingers like a heavy mist, is a primary culprit.
In this list is a reason many might not suspect, however: the revolutionary left.
Why are they a reason? How they could be, you might rightfully ask. How could dozens of sects with no actual power, on either the national level or even the grassroots level, be to blame for the slow ostracize battles where the topic is something as widespread as the “gay marriage” debate?
Leftists, of course, are not a significant cause. Yet I rush to add them because too often is the Left’s history of homophobia hidden under the rug. Racism, women’s rights, anti-war, all of these causes the Left took up yet not queer rights. Hundreds of years of agitation wasted. A waste which even permeates into modernity: while the marriage equality activists undertook the rigorous, and even dangerous work, of laying the foundations for equality where was the revolutionary left? I will tell you: cadres and long term revolutionists were attempting to agitate in the Labor Aristocracy, infiltrate and wrest control of reformist trade unions, and participating in small-scale, largely “feel good”, anti-war coalitions such as UNAC. Drunken in their own spheres of relative acceptance few dared to venture out and assist in radicalizing new converts in a struggle which had been raging above ground for decades now.
Fused together as a whole we now can begin to see all the threads which lead to defeat. We can now see the path of struggle.
Struggling Alone
Now that we know where the largely heterosexual revolutionary left was we can move down onto the grassroots level, to the conditions in regards to actual agitation.
If you are like me than you have spent some time volunteering with your local equality group. If this is the case than you also know how lucky you are if you see any revolutionaries participate (even rarer if those revolutionaries are non-queer). To take an example: while I was volunteering in my state’s capital the leader of the local group was none other than a die-hard Democrat. The other volunteers, it is not surprising, were either a mixture of liberals or “Green Party” supporters (what I like to call radical liberals, for laughs). Only once, when canvassing, did a volunteer introduce himself as a “radical leftist.”
To even find any other revolutionaries in my state one would be forced to search in the wider activist community. Doing this I would perhaps locate a handful of Anarchists, only a few of which were queer, none of which, aside from myself, which believed in a new direction enough to try and radicalize outside of their niche.
Such is my point; the field has been abandoned to the reformists.
How can revolutionaries help to push the mainstream boundaries of gay struggle beyond gay marriage?
The Path Forward
So what needs to be done? Despite the “doom and gloom” feel of events nothing is static. More of the mainstream revolutionary community is slowly trickling towards the queer liberation movement, affected as they are by a handful of agitators in their ranks. Assuming the pacific stranglehold of complicacy is shattered and more heterosexual and queer revolutionist themselves become active, what do we, as a queer revolutionary re-groupment, advocate?
As in the past the answer to this is multifold and must be broken-down bit by bit.
A prevailing attitude among the revolutionary left is the question of why they should support marriage equality. After all, is not marriage a bourgeois institution? Does not legalization of such marriage serve the ruling class’s intentions?
I firmly believe that nothing is set in stone. While marriage, in itself, is certainly a bourgeois institution the revolutionary left cannot simply dismiss queer cries for equality. After all, if a revolutionary followed this train of thought one could easily dismiss past revolutionary participation in the civil rights movement as “bourgeois” because the entire concept of human right to begin with is bourgeois; after all, surely a white woman and a black man marrying is not essential to racial equality, right? Such is still reinforcing marriage.
I doubt any revolutionary would agree as many seem to possess more understanding of racial equality than they do of queer equality. No, such duplicitous thinking is a poisonous weed. Abandonment of revolutionary participation in the queer movement, as was participation in the Black liberation movement, is tantamount to betrayal of proletarian interests.
This is even truer when one considers the vital material necessities which are at stake to queer workers. Same-sex marriage is not simply a status debate but an economic one. Marriage carries thousands of benefits ranging from such categories as sickness, taxes, and visitation. The queer working class wants these demands and wants the ability to live their lives together on equal footing with their heterosexual peers. Denying such workers their demands on the basis of “its bourgeois” is thinly veiled heterosexism and queerphobia at its worst.
Carrying this concept further it is important to remember that revolutionaries, in their current state, cannot dictate to mass movements, especially those with the relevance as marriage equality. Detractors can moan all they wish but the fact remains that the movement is happening. The base-line demand for this movement is same-sex marriage and this goal is not going to “go away” or change form until queers demands are met.
Because of this revolutionaries should be participating and highlighting the roots of queer oppression to the largely queer liberal volunteers.
Revolutionaries should be revealing the forms capitalist oppression used against queer people, they should be engaging the non-revolutionary and informing them of marriage’s history, the nature of capitalism, and the history of the once radical gay liberation movement, prying them away from reformism.
America after Marriage Equality
There was once a time in history when the then recently emerged gay liberation movement was headed by revolutionaries and radicals. Yet due to their overwhelming queerphobia the Left refused to assist the burgeoning movement and in due time reformists and liberals of all shades co-opted the cause. However, with the modern upsurges and forward momentum the left has a chance to redeem itself. They have a chance to sweep into the marriage debate, radicalize voices, and attract new converts.
Assuming this transpires what would be the result? Assuming revolutionists are active, perform their duties well, and aspire with the movement and stand with the queer community until the end winning marriage equality, what happens?
Two things happen: a whole generation of mostly young activists is radicalized, older people enlist in the revolutionary struggle and the battle against marriage as an institution begins.
The first concept does not need much, if any, exposition; currently the left is weak, the queer equality movement is in full swing and leftist participation is dependent on capturing new blood to engorge the “Party” ranks which in turn lead to a queer community with a new goal, a new direction in mind.
It is the second concept; however, that probably needs some explaining: the battle against marriage can begin. What does this mean?
Revolutionary communists know that marriage is a bourgeois institution. One which we have sworn to fight as it helps uphold the capitalist mode of production. As we moved past our petty-bourgeois musings about same-sex marriage, however, and conceded to helping the queer working class grab what is theirs, we also educated the masses in our epistemology. Most importantly we allowed all people, regardless of attraction, to feel the confining nature of sealed monogamous relationships. We knowingly allowed homosexuals to partake in marriage, thus saving it from continued decay, because we could not deny our brothers and sisters the same rights we enjoyed. We did this so we could convert new energy for the destruction of marriage.
As any parent must understand, weathering a child’s tantrum can be a headache. The same is so of movements which desire conservative outcomes (marriage), of movements which no matter how we might wish it, we cannot force them to change their goals. However, as the parent knows that the quickest way to end the tantrum is to give the child what it wants, we as communists know that the surest way to repair our image is to revolutionize this otherwise reformist wave. We know that after the storm, when the hordes of gay and lesbian couples realize what a travesty marriage is, the workers who once fought for inclusion in this societal tradition will eventually be on the same level of consciousness as their heterosexual counterparts: marriage being not in their interests as a collective.
Another unexpected result of this unfolding would be the decline of identity politics among the queer community. For far too long such a scourge has affected the community dividing the queer workers from their non-queer counterparts. Satisfied as the queer workers may be with marriage such ideologies would dwindle as a major roadblock towards their integration vanishes. Partly because the main divide between the two vanishes the decline of identity politics, of “my need is more important than your need”, will gradually break as well.
Once this conclusion has been reached, and all sectors of the working class are on the same page, the battle against marriage, against a major pillar of the bourgeoisie’s favored productive mode, can begin in earnest.
Link to article: http://kasamaproject.org/2012/11/13/thoughts-on-queer-liberation-the-recent-elections-and-revolutionaries/
Link to primary response (with my rebuttal in comments under my same RevLeft username): http://kasamaproject.org/2012/11/13/theres-nothing-revolutionary-about-marriage-ish-repsonds-to-curtis-coles-article/
I think marriage equality is an acceptable reform, a democratic right that queer people deserve as much as straight people. When New York State got marriage equality a couple years ago I was happy, I admit, even though I don’t see it affecting my own life very much. But I’m just not excited by the movement for marriage equality….and more specifically it doesn’t strike me that it offers, other than as a kind of counterpoint, a way for revolutionaries to engage the gay, lesbian, trans, and/or queer communities. And so while I think it’s important to critique the left’s record on gay liberation, as I have certainly done before, I’m not sure I agree with comrade Cole that this movement is the best place for the left to be, or the most relevant place to understand the left’s failures or progress.
First, the social conservatism inherent in fighting for marriage is not just abstract. For instance in many places where people could claim domestic partnership rights — property, visitation, etc — gay couples who do not chose to transition to formal marriage could lose those rights. While the removal of one form of dehumanizing discrimination can be celebrated, it’s clear that marriage equality quite clearly extends oppressive capitalist property relations into the queer world, proving what Marxists believe about marriage, property, oppression and the state, and I find this hard to celebrate uncritically. It’s hard to forget the many straight revolutionary couples I’ve known over the years who refused marriage because they didn’t need the state to confer legitimacy on their relationships.
What I have noticed is that the wing of the gay movement that is most interested in marriage equality is the liberal wing, 100% in the thrall of the Democratic Party, whereas those in the gay community, and here perhaps queer community is more accurate, questioning marriage equality seem to be raising more interesting and more radical notions about queer identity and also about political struggle. To me, the marriage equality movement is profoundly liberal. Why did the liberal gay and lesbian community leadership choose marriage, as opposed to anti-discrimination in employment or housing, as a priority for political action? The gay establishment certainly chose a path of least resistance since the anti-discrimination struggle would have forced them to address the inclusion of transgendered people: many in the gay establishment have already indicated a willingness to jettison the transgendered for political expedience’s sake.
(And far from Obama coming out as a “pro-queer” president, what I think he came out as is a capitalist politician who knew a quick way to buy millions of votes with cynical grandstanding. Obama made a political calculation that helped him win an election. Obama’s actions on removing DADT discrimination in the military actually successfully bought support for U.S. imperialism in the gay community. I have seen this repeatedly.)
Leftwing lesbian intellectual Sarah Schulman writes
(http://www.prettyqueer.com/2012/05/09/the-problems-inherent-in-marriage-itself/):
“The continued distorted representation of our lives in mainstream arts and entertainment coupled with pervasive familial homophobia, pressured many LGB people into abandoning or perhaps forgetting about the goal of an expanded society. In a sense we were “bullied” into letting the society change us. The bait was that the more we appeared to mirror heterosexual family structure, sexual mores and consumer patterns, the more they would accept us. In this way, instead of changing society, society changed us – and – on the surface- we now have lost a great deal of our specificity and are so recognizable to straight people that even the most powerful heterosexual in the world, Barack Obama is confidently unthreatened enough to endorse equal marriage rights.
What this does not address, however, are the problems inherent in marriage itself. we all know that 50% of heterosexual marriages end in divorce. So, clearly marriage is not working as an institution. Now that gay people are fitting themselves into a dysfunctional box in order to win approval, our futures will surely be as strewn with disappointment, legal battles and failure to conform that heterosexuals endure, even with their constant advocacy by film and television, and the profound privileges given to them by their families. In this way we are living in the gay version of the 1950′s. But the 1960′s are just around the corner. Inevitably these conservatizing trends will again explode into a new sexual revolution, collective living, and a desire for liberatory feminism. I just hope I live long enough to see it.”
Although he doesn’t break from thinking about these issues in terms of reforms, AIDS activist Ian Awesome writes (http://hivster.com/?p=6315) about the limitations of marriage equality and the class problems inherent in it:
EVERYTHING Sucks. Not Just Marriage Inequality.
The benefits of getting married in the US are legion. If you’re married you can put your spouse on your health insurance. Is your lover a foreign national? No problem! Marry them and they can stay. Inheritance rights are wrapped up in the issue of marriage– afraid your family will steal the estate that should go to your partner? Get hitched! These reasons, and many more, are the ones that get thrown against my disdain for spending resources on marriage equality….But is marriage really the way to accomplish those goals? Think about it. Should we really be telling people that the only way they can be with their loved ones is to enter into a binding, state-validated contract?…Isn’t the real problem there that we need immigration reform?
Health care is an obvious one. I had a prominent blogger actually say to me that she was working for marriage equality so that she could get health care through her wife’s plan. Ok. It’s legit to need health care. However, I can’t help but think that in of itself is silly. The only way for us to get medical care is to… romantically commit to someone for life? What? Isn’t the real problem that we need universal health care?
I could go on and on. Homeless queer youth! Suicide! The scalping of AIDS patients by big pharmaceuticals! And yet the conversation is centered around how soon I could potentially throw a bachelor’s party.
That’s not right.
No! No Benefits For You Until You Get Yourself A Man!
See, the problem with marriage is its exclusionary nature, as the queer community has clearly taken note of. We’ve been excluded from it for so long perhaps the majority of us have not realized that we’re not the only people who go without these benefits bestowed upon those who choose to marry. …
Pay No Attention To The Fat Cat Behind The Curtain
Why are we, then, so focused on marriage? It’s not immediately clear… until you look at LGBT leadership. Or rather, gay white male leadership. In our vast, diverse group of individuals that touches every single culture on this planet there seems to be a dearth of “commoners” who rise to positions of power and authority in the organizations who are supposed to be advocating for our interests….If you look at the leadership of most major organizations, it’s pretty homogeneous. Rich white gay men are calling the shots. What do they care about universal health care? They have their own. Income inequality helps them stay ahead and they are no more likely to assist the common queer in being successful, healthy, and happy than Mitt Romney. All they will give us will be marriage….In fact, you might even say that these rich gay white men and the corporations that fund their organizations don’t want true income equality and universal health care. After all, that might require they pay more taxes.
Shhh. Just think about getting married instead. Isn’t that nice?
Another World Is Possible! I Think I’ll Live In It Without Marriage.
A lot more thought-provoking arguments can be found at the queer site Against Equality (http://www.againstequality.org/about/marriage/).
Gay marriage apes hetero privilege and allows everyone to forget that marriage ought not to be the guarantor of rights like health care. In their constant invoking of the “right” to gay marriage, mainstream gays and lesbians express a confused tangle of wishes and desires. They claim to contest the Right’s conservative ideology yet insist that they are more moral and hence more deserving than sluts like us. They claim that they simply want the famous 1000+ benefits but all of these, like the right to claim protection in cases of domestic violence, can be made available to non-marital relationships.
We wish that the GM crowd would simply cop to it: Their vision of marriage is the same as that of the Right, and far from creating FULL EQUALITY NOW! as so many insist (in all caps and exclamation marks, no less) gay marriage increases economic inequality by perpetuating a system which deems married beings more worthy of the basics like health care and economic rights.
While I wouldn’t say I oppose marriage equality, I find these arguments from the left exciting, and I think here is discussion revolutionaries should be engaging in. Is the marriage equality movement actually radicalizing young people? Or doing something else?
My response to this:
Hello Ish and again I thank you for your well-thought out post which you clearly put some time and effort into writing. Because there is so much to cover I will jump right into the bulk of my arguments…
You said:
“I’m not sure I agree with comrade Cole that this movement is the best place for the left to be, or the most relevant place to understand the left’s failures or progress.”
To this I need to not so much critique as I need to clarify. While I strongly believe in the objective of the queer liberation movement, with me being a queer liberationist, I do not mean to imply that the queer movement itself is the best place for the left. Indeed the queer movement is merely a area of interest which the left should be engaged in. To this the left needs to implant themselves among all oppressed groups (Muslims, racial minorities, woman, etc). My focus on the queer movement in this article was an effort to try and uncover some of the ways this might be done; much is the same of the left’s failure in this regard: I did not intend, nor did I ever say, that to understand the left’s failures in general one must understand their failures in the queer spectrum. While this area can give the left a glimpse of its failing’s one must truly look to many areas and not just one.
Moving on, you said:
“For instance in many places where people could claim domestic partnership rights — property, visitation, etc — gay couples who do not chose to transition to formal marriage could lose those rights.”
While for those couples it would be unfortunate I am not sure I see the validity in this argument. First of all, the couple being in a civil union means that they follow what we might call the bourgeois nuclear family structure; meaning they already have property in mind. Secondly, if they are in such a union transferring to marriage would only benefit them: why would they remain in a civil union if a marriage offers more benefits? I think it is quite clear they intend to remain together (since they went through the procedure to become civil partners). Them “upgrading” to marriage would be the rational thing to do.
“…it’s clear that marriage equality quite clearly extends oppressive capitalist property relations into the queer world, proving what Marxists believe about marriage, property, oppression and the state, and I find this hard to celebrate uncritically.”
True, but no one is saying such should be celebrated uncritically. As I explain in my original article battling for marriage equality is a means to an end, not an end in itself. While the “extension” of property relations is hard to swallow as a Marxist it must be remembered that those couples living together already, many for many years if not decades, have already moved their relationship to the extent where all of their belongs and property are informally intertwined. Denying such property recognition to queer couples (in this case homosexual) would also jeopardize post-death property inheritance. To exemplify this: I recently attended a Queer Trans Youth Summit where one of the speakers told of early in her legal career she would frequently receive phone calls from gays and lesbians who had their partner pass away. These people often asked her why after their partner’s death all of their (the deceased partner) personal possessions and property were being repossessed. Obviously they were quite distraught. The answer was that because they weren’t married the state did not recognize their relationship was a legitimate union. While I am sure you have heard such stories before the point stands that are we, as queer revolutionaries, to stand against this event not occurring simply because we have an idea, a far flung belief, in how the future should be organized? Clearly I think differently and advocate that before property relations as a whole can be attacked or broken apart the proletariat of all oppressed groups must be allowed to manage social-capital on the same level as their heterosexual peers. The old phrase comes to mind: you do not know what you have until it is gone. Likewise you cannot fight against something until you have known it and understand it, until the feeling of inadequacy has been erased.
“It’s hard to forget the many straight revolutionary couples I’ve known over the years who refused marriage because they didn’t need the state to confer legitimacy on their relationships.”
I salute people who are able to be in committed relationships without their union being given “legitimacy” by some higher power. However it is only somewhat crude of me to point out the reality of the situation by saying that such couples are setting themselves up for disappointment if something were to happen, if they lacked a certain right which would only be granted to them through recognition. Secondly these couples are heterosexual hence they have more societal support for being able to remain as they are without an absurd amount of difficulty. Gay couples, as I do not need to remind you, lack this critical factor thus making it an unequal comparison.
Following this you spoke,
“What I have noticed is that the wing of the gay movement that is most interested in marriage equality is the liberal wing, 100% in the thrall of the Democratic Party, whereas those in the gay community, and here perhaps queer community is more accurate, questioning marriage equality seem to be raising more interesting and more radical notions about queer identity and also about political struggle.”
Essentially you are saying there is no revolutionary wing, this is a concept I agree with and took efforts to expose in my entry. But the insinuation you are making is that because they are enthralled to the Democratic Party this unidentified wing is unsuitable for contributing real change to the political struggle. While I do not necessarily disagree this is the other point I was trying to make in my entry: they, the wing fighting for equality, have been misled by reformist bodies. They have barreled towards this goal yet while doing so they have been ensnared by liberal policies. We as revolutionaries, especially the heterosexual majority as I have outlined, have abandoned those people who would be most susceptible to radical left-wing theory.
As for your personal observation I cannot offer anything but my own anecdotal experience which lays claim to the opposite: since politically I am a queer liberationist I also participate in the struggle to prevent HIV/AIDS. So, needless to say, earlier this summer I attended the Campaign to End AIDS Youth Caucus. While there protesting I visited a group of transgender activists who worked in black working class neighborhoods. These people worked with sex workers helping them stay safe while engaging in their work and offering them console in transitioning to the gender they so wished to be. While these individuals told their heart wrenching stories I nonetheless saw great enthusiasm for marriage equality. Despite the fact that the workers here had transitioned from male identities towards female identities they still believed in the concept of marriage equality. Why? Unity, understanding the concrete realities of their fellow workers? It is hard to say but from my own accounts I do not think that certain segments of the oppressed sexuality community are gravitating towards more progressive stances than others.
“To me, the marriage equality movement is profoundly liberal. Why did the liberal gay and lesbian community leadership choose marriage, as opposed to anti-discrimination in employment or housing, as a priority for political action?”
Who is the ‘gay leadership’? You speak as though there is a single united group of gays and lesbians who make all the decisions instead of a scattered net of groups. What I believe you forget is that nothing in history is static, everything is in constant motion. The objective today is marriage. The objective of yesteryear was housing and anti-discrimination. This is not to say that living quarters are plentiful and discrimination is non-existent; to the point the abnormally high rates of queer youth homelessness attest to just how awful things are currently.
Continuing to expand on this point you said:
“The gay establishment certainly chose a path of least resistance since the anti-discrimination struggle would have forced them to address the inclusion of transgendered people: many in the gay establishment have already indicated a willingness to jettison the transgendered for political expedience’s sake.”
I believe in ebb and flow-meaning-I never take for granted what happened in any historical moment. I think that the reason the objective today is marriage is because not because the gay community chose the path of least resistance (because fighting the conservative backlash and interpersonal struggles certainly did not lead to an easier time by any means) but because they were forced to after the AIDS plague took many wonderful people from us. Is it not reasonable to assume that after so many gay men died from AIDS (in part, and though I hate to sound like a Republican fearmonger, because of the non-monogamous culture which homosexuals had engaged in) the community would, one at a time, come to the conclusion that the only way to survive as a community, keep the civil rights ball rolling (especially after the Left ditched them), and prevent massive setbacks would be to reorient towards more “acceptable” goals?
Instead of unsafe loose relationships, which increased the risk for contracting the dreaded virus, “new” monogamous relationships were adopted where one man would select another man to be his life partner. The era of “Free Love”, it seemed, was over. As the community settled into these new roles (which included an elimination of drug use, this is seen, admittedly, as early as the Gay Liberation Front) it would then be only reasonable to assume that the next logical step would be to “authenticate” such relationships. Hence, this is why, I think, we have the goal of marriage as the standard.
Now, I do not think that the marriage struggle is more important than anti-discrimination as a rule (though homosexuals not being allowed to marry is discrimination of a kind). Yet I do believe that lacking the absence of an organized struggle with the same support as marriage, anti-discrimination work, in the vague, is simply not as viable right now, especially when the temporary weakening of the ultra-reactionary concept of “one man, one woman” is more prevalent; to take it further we can say that not only is the marriage struggle better funded and more public but it has a ripple effect on the anti-discrimination movement, namely, equality and the threat of a good example.
Agreed you might be surprised to know that I agree with much you say. For instance: We must battle alongside transgender people for anti-discrimination measures, equal treatment in the workplace, and where no other more progressive cause exists, a revolutionized effort at attaining marriage.
(For a quizzical piece of mine which I wrote some time earlier, where my views have since changed some, see here:
http://thequeerproject.wordpress.com/2012/07/19/the-state-of-international-queer-liberation/ )
Now for the president:
“(And far from Obama coming out as a “pro-queer” president, what I think he came out as is a capitalist politician who knew a quick way to buy millions of votes with cynical grandstanding. Obama made a political calculation that helped him win an election. Obama’s actions on removing DADT discrimination in the military actually successfully bought support for U.S. imperialism in the gay community. I have seen this repeatedly.)”
When I say a pro-queer president I meant it in a broad understanding: he is not as pro-gay as he is not anti-queer on the level of the Tea Party/Republicans. He has displayed this several times. First in his clear statement some years ago where he said that he believed marriage was between a man and a woman and then more recently where he only came out in support of queers because his vice president let his mouth run and so he was forced to support the queer struggles by default, least risk embarrassment and losing a voting bloc.
Onwards once more, you quotes a couple paragraphs concerning the position of queer intellectual Sarah Schulman. Summing up her conclusion she argues that queer people were “bullied” into adopting heterosexual lifestyles and that since marriage as an institution is failing it doesn’t make sense why queer people should fight for inclusion in such a historical cornerstone.
From my previous rebuttals you know that I do not take the position that anyone was “bullied” into adopting any kind of life objectives. I take the opposite road and say much of the reason why the goals are they are because of unfortunate circumstance (the outbreak of AIDS). Besides this point, the idea that any large community can be bullied, especially one such as the queer community which has a large history of violent bullying, can be seduced while they were making some headway is not a sound concept. To me it seems that Sarah was examining things in a static frame of mind and perhaps had a chip on her shoulder against elements of the heterosexual establishment. If we were to be bullied into adopting any such straight institutions it would be more logical to say that we would have adopted such initiatives before the so-called assimilation, before even the emancipatory actions at Stonewall.
Her second point has more of a relevant edge, however. After all, why should queer people fight for entrance into this institution when marriage has proven itself to be incapable of maintaining itself? I believe it was Bishop Gene Robinson that advanced the position that allowing gays and lesbians to marry would in fact save marriage. So why prolong things?
Now, I do not advance such a position, per se. I take the position that marriage, as an institution, is in a state of decay. This decay is perpetual and can only truly fail (I.E. collapse) when society enters into a fundamentally different direction (socialism). While capitalism still reigns and traditional American values still enjoy widespread praise, can any such institution, especially, that which has the legacy of marriage, truly collapse? I think not (though to be clear, in my original post I maintained that allowing queers to marry would prevent further decay. The two are different).
Keeping in mind that marriage itself will not simply cease to exist one day on its own, despite the high rates of failures, it is important to know that following this route does not mean dysfunction on the same level as heterosexual unions; after all, queer couples must adopt thus making a great feature of divorce, custody rights, a less seen event in comparison (If a relationship is failing than it is not likely that said couple will adopt). While it is true that sooner or later decay will affect the homosexual pillar of marriage such is part of the plan; development must be allowed to take its natural course. There is no perfect structure for interpersonal human interaction. There are better systems, yes, but we must strive towards those systems through collective experience. The whole point about my article, remember, is that before marriage can be attacked on a whole, the entire populace must be on the same metaphorical page (why they must be on the same page I have explained before in regards to the current weight of movement).
Next up you quote friend and fellow activist Ian Anderson. Ian’s position is that the movement towards marriage equality stems not from the necessity for survival but from cooption on the part of white “middle class” males; it is, in short, an argument based on a group’s class position.
We are Marxists and this, at first glance, appears to be a sound argument. More so it has an air of truth. Indisputably there are many gay white males in the modern movement. Yet is this the cause for the reformist goal (marriage)? I believe not.
As I allured to this-white middle class males controlling the movement-is something which is more recent in addition to a phenomena spurred on by the mass media. During the stonewall rebellion, for instance, a great many of the participants were persons of color. This was before the movement had declined. One could place part of the blame on the heterosexual revolutionary left; in their rush to stand aside Black and minority nationalities they made inroads but squandered these links when it came time to decide if they were to assist in the gay liberation movement. This, their refusal to help and promote multi-racial leadership of the early liberation groups, contributed towards the decline.
Yet the fact remains: the Left abandoned the queers and soon reformist leadership, headed by reformist and dominant racial groups, seized control. So while it is not incorrect by any means to assert that the reason for marriage is the result of white influence it does jump the gun a bit and it ignores the hugely influential course of events which I explored earlier (AIDS and survival as a free community).
However, Ian goes on to expound the notion that it is not a variety of grassroots campaigning over the course of decades which to marriage equality as the goal but instead the belief that it is corporations which fund such endeavors because it channels energies away from revolutionary objectives and into more socially acceptable ones.
Again this has a ring of truth. Corporations certainly do fund queer figureheads and groups, as evidenced by any large city’s gay pride parade and such shows in the existence of conservative queer groups. Still such promotes the theory that through the usage of a few people the ruling class can divert radical energy to other sources. Do people like Dan Savage and Ellen DeGeneres have so much power? I think not.
It is a very one-sided theory which assumes much on the part of a few people which were only able to gain power due to a series of unfortunate events prior to their emergence.
Much in the same vein the quote sections from Against Equality are much similar to the vague and unrealistic demands. They rail against the inequalities perpetuated by marriage and offer some musings about sexual freedom to convolute the process. Simply said, however, such is, again, part of modern capitalism in our current epoch. Fighting against these inequalities are important but doing so while many millions crave the protections inherent within is ludicrous. Eventually the system will come to the point where it can be fought to the death but such is not the time now.
Concluding, attaining marriage equality is vital because it is a necessary step in progress. It is a gate way towards future organizing and radicalizing. While pending on a young person’s family it may not be the most polarizing concept it is the most talked about, it is the stepping stone towards further talk and debate.This is why it is vital that revolutionaries intervene in this process.
I relate this struggle to that of Leninism in that in the same way socialism (the socialist state) is an absolutely necessary step towards communism, one that Anarchists (anti-marriage people) wish to skip, marriage equality is a necessary step towards its destruction. While some may wish to skip socialism (marriage equality) and skip straight towards communism (marriage destruction) such simply is not possible.
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Well, that is it. I look forward to hearing the varying opinions.