If you want to abolish heternormative culture then it necessarily means marriage has to be abolished, since marriage is fundamentally a heterosexual institution.
This is an article I wrote: The Cynicism of Gay Marriage.
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Gay liberation and marriage
Why do some parts of the gay liberation movement advocate abolition of the institution of marriage as opposed to getting a right to marry? I remember reading a piece on the subject, which claimed that a right to marry doesn't liberate gay people, but merely assimilate them with the heteronormative culture, or something, but I am not sure if I am following this argument, i.e. how you get from that, to "hence, institution of marriage should be abolished".
Links would be appreciated in as much as your arguments.
Morality is everything which contributes to the triumph of the revolution. Immoral and criminal is everything that stands in its way.
If you want to abolish heternormative culture then it necessarily means marriage has to be abolished, since marriage is fundamentally a heterosexual institution.
This is an article I wrote: The Cynicism of Gay Marriage.
Why is marriage fundamentally a heterosexual institution?
I've read it, thanks. Well, I am not sure if I am following your argument. It might be because I don't understand why marriage is fundamentally heterosexual institution, so I hope you will explain it.
You write:
Also you say:
Well, that might be true, but you might say the same about any sort of reform whatsoever, which have real and tangible benefits for those who are on the benefiting side of the reform. Are you opposed to that as well or am I making a bad comparison?
Marriage equality won't grant true equality, that's true, but for many gay people it is a step forward in a sense that now they would have access to various privileges that they were denied previously. Many working-class people, who will remain "in the closet" won't get it, but many of the working-class people, who are "out of the closet", will. Isn't that right?
Morality is everything which contributes to the triumph of the revolution. Immoral and criminal is everything that stands in its way.
The institution was established primarily to bind women to men; to sanctify the ownership of a man over a woman. I don't understand how you could think it is anything other than a heterosexual institution...
It depends how you want to frame the debate. Is your primary objective providing reforms or forwarding a gay liberationist agenda?
If it's the former, then gay marriage is a spectacular achievement when you consider the state of affairs fifty years ago. Gay men and women are now able to legally bind their relationships (although many marriage benefits that are enjoyed by heterosexual couples still won't apply).
If your objective is the latter, then attempting to achieve that objective by taking state hand-outs designed specifically to assimilate gay people into a heteronormative social paradigm is fundamentally at odds with it.
My role as a communist and a queer liberationist isn't to make people's lives under capitalism and within a heteronormative society more comfortable.
Also, I have no interest in equality. Equality is a liberal construct designed to placate dissent. The idea that I want to be equal to a straight person is part of the structural oppression of heteronormative power. It is a concept weaved into the structure of my oppression as a gay man. I don't need your equality, nor do I want it. I want to burn down your society.
Whether it is right or not will depend on what your objective is.
What do you mean by equality in this context, by the way? I have always understood the term to imply enjoying the freedoms and opportunities afforded to the privileged group, not suffering stigma or hostility based on your identity, and so forth. Given that, why would you object to equality with heterosexuals and what kind of relation with them would you prefer?
Benevolent can never occur. In the same sentence as dictator.
Heteronormativity encompasses the whole of society. It is intrinsic and structural and therefore pervades throughout everything. From our language, to our culture, from our social organisation to our education and our laws. Even the conceptualisations and understandings of all those things are heteronormative presupposition. Everything we do and say and think is predicated on the assumption that heterosexuality is the normative, correct, justified form of human interaction.
Anything that deviates from that, therefore, is considered an anomaly; something that is separate. If you accept this premise, when heterosexual society talks of "equality" it is talking about permitting "rights" to non-heterosexual people as an entity within their own society that requires protection from it, thereby confirming the legitimacy of their society.
Those rights and that concept of equality exist within the paradigm of heteronormativity; it is a "heterosexual" concept, established to mediate the rise of non-heterosexual social and cultural dynamics. Being handed the rights to equality essentially demonstrates the structural control of heteronormativity; that I, as a gay man, require heterosexual society to hand me rights to determine that I am "equal." Accept that equality only reinforces the existence of that power, it doesn't challenge it.
What this ultimately means is that we are not equal. We have some illusion of equality; we have been afforded rights that allows us to be like straight people, but that equality and those rights don't address the imbalance of power, or challenge heteronormative domination at its core.
As a revolutionary queer liberationist my objective is to destroy heteronormative society and tear down those assumptions. Liberation doesn't exist because I am now allowed to act like a straight person and I'm free from persecution (why does that persecution exist in the first place?), it exists when dominant cultural, sexual and social understandings are fundamentally queer, and the heteronormative paradigm has turned into a queer one.
What that looks like is: no more heterosexuality, no more homosexuality, no more bisexuality, no more men, no more women, just human beings being who they want, how they want, doing what they want, with whomever they want...That should be the prevailing, dominant social and cultural assumption -- Being born into a society that does not gender you and does not assume your sexuality.
Until that time, straight people can take their equality and their gay rights and go fuck themselves.
Last edited by The Feral Underclass; 27th August 2014 at 11:59.
Sure, but how does it make it *fundamentally* heterosexual? I mean, you might as well have had a situation at some point where black people in the US were excluded from the institution of marriage. Does it make the institution fundamentally a white one? After inclusion of black people in it, do we still view it as fundamentally a white one? Or is it rather that after an inclusion of a certain group in the institution, we stop viewing it as fundamentally exclusionary by the virtue of having included other groups in it? More specifically, if gay people are allowed to marry, what is it that makes that institution heteronormative apart from its history?
You can have an latter objective and still appreciate better conditions under which gay people can live, can't you? The revolutions don't just happen, but as historical experience shows, they go through zig-zags, winning some and then losing some. Ultimately my question would be this: why can't you be a communist queer liberationist with an objective to destroy heteronormative culture, while fighting getting concession on your towards the goal? Fighting homophobia in the sphere of employment doesn't destroy heteronormative society, but that is still a goal worth fighting for in the meantime as it has real and tangible benefits for oppressed gay people, no?
Morality is everything which contributes to the triumph of the revolution. Immoral and criminal is everything that stands in its way.
Historically, marriage was invented as the legal union of a man and a woman. It cannot get more fundamentally heterosexual than that. Of course, if you believe institutions can be reformed and changed, then the heterosexual character of marriage is open to change; but that has to be balanced by the understanding that marriage must be situated in its historical context as a heterosexual institution.
That gay people are allowed to marry, as if somebody is doing them a favour by letting them join an ultimately heterosexual club. Edit: also, to dismiss 'its history' as a minor caveat is to really mis-understand the motivations for human behaviour. You cannot just whitewash the history of an institution and expect gay people to just trust a heteronormative institution like marriage which for example in the UK is controlled by a state whose official religion is against gay marriage!
I think this is generally a fair comment when viewed in the social context that as workers (whatever our race, gender, or sexual orientation) we may be exploited under capitalism, but we still live and exist within the capitalist system. So as a worker it is in our interest, if the opportunity presents itself, to take higher welfare benefits when possible, to take better employment protections when possible, and to take better education and healthcare opportunities when possible.
But why, for a gay person, is it beneficial to participate in an institution if, as a gay person, you believe that said institution (marriage) is ultimately a heteronormative one that through its history has been used to cement the dominion of heterosexuality in society and legally and socially suppress possibilities for gay equality?
We are forced as workers to exist under a capitalist system en masse, and so it makes sense to take advantage of concessions whilst, as socialists, we fight for a better society overall. But gay people are not forced to participate in a heternormative institution like marriage and, if they don't feel like it's an institution that represents their being or has anything to do with their identity, why should they allow themselves to be co-opted into an institution that they don't actually have to submit their identity to?
Well, for the reason I stated and that you appear to agree with. Fundamental means: "forming a necessary base or core; of central importance."
No, it doesn't make it fundamentally white, but it does continue to be fundamentally heterosexual.
But marriage isn't necessarily exclusionary. Especially now that it's open to gay people. That doesn't stop it from being a heterosexual institution.
I don't really understand what your conceptualisation of heteronormativity is. It's not a question of discovering an answer that is "apart from its history," it's the very history itself that we have to concern ourselves with. The history of everything. The history of Western reality (if not throughout the planet). Reality as we understand it is heteronormative. Everything that has developed has been predicated on that understanding -- even in Ancient civilisations where non-heterosexual relationships were permissible, they were still predicated on heteronormative understandings.
Read my post to Aurorus Ruber for further explanation on rights and equality, of which gay marriage is part.
Yes, you can appreciate it, but if it is counter-productive to your objectives, then it is incompetent political organising.
Because those concessions reinforces the domination you are fighting against. From who are you winning these concessions? The state? The state is part of heternormative structures of oppression. By asking them to provide concessions you are essentially reinforcing their power to determine the lives of queer people and more importantly for them, de-escalating conflict.
That's a ridiculous strategy if your objective is to destroy them.
Unless the strategy that you employ to combat homophobia is directly related to achieving your objective, then you are not effectively organising.
Last edited by The Feral Underclass; 27th August 2014 at 10:40.
Yes, I agree that historically speaking it is fundamentally a heterosexual institution. However, like you said, I believe that the nature of an institution can change, hence, my questions.
Well, yes, and black people were allowed to have enjoy the same rights as white people, at least legally speaking, to an extent. Should they feel bad about it? Shouldn't they have wanted equal legal rights from the State, which was historically and remains racist? Are liberal rights somehow fundamentally white, because historically they were granted exclusively to right people? Well, I don't think they are and that's why I am questioning this whole thing as I still fail to see it clearly.
Well, but that's the thing, I think most of the gay people aren't radicals and simply want to have a right to marriage. If you don't want that, well, fair enough. But what I am trying to understand is if there is something beyond "historically it is heterosexual institution, hence, I don't like".
Morality is everything which contributes to the triumph of the revolution. Immoral and criminal is everything that stands in its way.
In that case, why should the ninety or so percent of the people who are heterosexual have submit to a fundamentally queer paradigm? That sounds rather like replacing one form of domination (by the heterosexual majority) with another form (by the queer minority). The great majority of people, simply by biological nature and so forth, are simply not queer. Foisting a queer paradigm on all those people sounds like it would lead to problems of its own.
Last edited by Aurorus Ruber; 27th August 2014 at 13:54.
Benevolent can never occur. In the same sentence as dictator.
The term queer is used to mean multiple sexualities and multiple genders. That is why I said: "no more heterosexuality, no more homosexuality, no more bisexuality, no more men, no more women, just human beings being who they want, how they want, doing what they want, with whomever they want...That should be the prevailing, dominant social and cultural assumption -- Being born into a society that does not gender you and does not assume your sexuality."
As a legal institution within a capitalist economy, marriage is fundamentally capitalist in character. It is not fundamentally heterosexual, as we can see from modern reforms; but even as feminism has humanized marriage and made it less sexist and, now, less heterosexist, marriage remains an institution designed to regulate private property. Even if marriage is not a gendered institution, it will remain a largely capitalist institution. So for example it supplies certain default rules that accompany dissolution/divorce and death, including inheritance and child welfare rules.
The problem is that you cannot simply abolish marriage as an institution without fundamentally changing the social order that it accompanies and reinforces. You see this in the way that advanced capitalist economies are forced to deal with cohabitation for example; taking cognizance of LGBT families is part of a broader change. Socialist states did not abolish marriage or inheritance or other facets of the capitalist legal system, although they did reform it.
The main problem I have with the "abolish marriage" line is that it frequently serves as an empty slogan. If you abolish marriage without a revolution that changes the nature of property itself, you have a mess, not liberation. You might as well shout for the abolition of wages and wage regulation when presented with campaigns for a living wage.
Marriage pre-dates capitalism and has been a legal institution throughout history in one way or another. I'm not really sure how it follows that it's a fundamentally "capitalist in character."
Then why has marriage always been a union between a man and a woman?
Which queer liberationists call for the abolition of marriage as a transitional demand? I'm interested to know who you're referring to.
Last edited by The Feral Underclass; 27th August 2014 at 17:12.
As I said, as a legal institution within a capitalist economy. As a legal institution within a feudal society, it was fundamentally feudal. And presumably heterosexual in the feudal case, but not in the (advanced) capitalist case. Marriage performs its functions quite well in modern societies when the parties are the same gender, but its functions are capitalist in nature.
As a transitional demand? I don't know exactly what this Guardian columnist had in mind, but abolition of marriage in this circumstance doesn't sound like it would follow revolution, but precede it:
The other problem is that even assuming queer radicals are not promoting abolition, queer right-libertarians and their enablers are, often using the term "privatization" as opposed to abolition. So the calls for abolition take place within a political context that is more receptive to something along the right libertarian line than it is to revolution.
The only way that you are able to reject marriage as a fundamentally heterosexual institution is to deny the existence of heteronormative domination. The economic dimensions of marriage notwithstanding, the fundamental basis of marriage was exclusively to sanctify the unity of a man with a woman, defended by heternormative ideology that presupposed any other kind of relationship as wrong. The institution came into existence to legitimise heterosexual relationships. It is, therefore, fundamentally an institution for heterosexuals.
The fact that gay people are now permitted to participate in that institution does not negate its fundamental character. All it means is that gay people can now be like straight people, which is a perfect result for heternormative power, since it assimilates gay people into heteronormative culture and pacifies dissent.
Julie Bindel is a liberal and a transphobe. She is neither queer nor a liberationist.
I don't see how this is relevant to me or my argument. Frankly, it smacks of opportunism. Are you suggesting that I should modify my beliefs because people I don't like may have similar ideas?
How does rejecting modern marriage as fundamentally heterosexual reject the existence of heteronormative domination? Now I am not sure exactly what you mean by "heteronormative domination," but the point I am making is that modern marriage is an institution that is more fundamentally tied to property rules than it is to heterosexuality. It is becoming obsolescent because of changes in the economy and accompanying changes in social relations, and its current functions are not dependent on child rearing or procreation.
Not all societies were puritanical or required sanctification of the traditional marriage relationship at the expense of other relations. There are a number of examples one can point to, but the legal function of marriage is directly tied in to property relations. To the extent that legitimization of relationships is another function, the push for same-sex marriage would not support an inference that the modern institution is fundamentally for heterosexuals. It is, of course, fundamentally for couples, since the arrangement in most advanced capitalist economies excludes group marriages.
Marriage has no transtemporal essence. This is probably the source of our disagreement. Now it may well assimilate gay people into the dominant culture and pacify dissent, but that does not mean that it has any kind of timeless character that is not subject to the economic base of a society and its matrix of social relations. As for stating that gay people can now be "like" straight people, many gay people are like straight people. They are like their straight counterparts because they come from the same milieu. I also don't accept the idea that being gay is a revolutionary act, or ever was. It is also a pretty fluid identity and I accept much of D'Emilio's thesis that modern gay identity is rooted in modern capitalism.
Fine, but what do queer liberationists propose with respect to the abolition of marriage then? I am assuming that you are referencing those abolitionists who oppose formal legal equality as a reform that isn't worthwhile, else I am not sure why we are having this discussion at all.
I don't have any problem with the idea of marriage abolition, as long as it isn't being used as a pretext for reactionary agendas. I mean I don't fundamentally disagree with the idea that a socialist order will not have much use for marriage, if it has any use for it at all. I do think that it helps when queer radicals explain exactly what this means for both current struggles and future ones.
Since most (if not all) of the world's societies have developed based on heteronormative cultures, structures and practices, to reject marriage as fundamentally heterosexual would be to deny that this is the case.
I mean the prevailing and dominant assumptions within society's culture, structures and practices that determine sexuality and gender norms and then defend those norms politically and ideologically.
And as I've said, it doesn't matter whether this is the case, it doesn't alter the fact that marriage is fundamentally a heterosexual institution.
Name one society that did not have heterosexual relationships as the prevailing and dominant relationship norm, or have that norm as a central tenet to that societies culture.
Then please do.
I'm not talking about legalities, I'm talking about reality and the structures of domination that establish and maintain it.
There is a profound difference between marriage being a fundamentally heterosexual institution and marriage being for heterosexuals. It may appear subtle to you, but marriage being permitted to homosexuals doesn't mean that the cultural, socio-historical nature of marriage is not fundamentally heterosexual.
It's not a question of it transcending time, it's a question of its origin and its development and use in subjugating non-heterosexual, non-gender binary social norms. Marriage isn't neutral when it comes to sexuality.
If you accept the former then the latter is redundant. If you accept it assimilates gay people into the dominant culture, you have to accept that the economic basis of marriage is irrelevant to that fact.
The economic basis of marriage does not account for its cultural and social practice and uses. The origin of marriage is fundamentally heterosexual and it has continued to serve that purpose throughout history, constantly reaffirming heterosexuality as the prevailing and dominant norm. It continues to do that now, despite the fact that gay people are "permitted" to participate in it. "Gay marriage" is a direct result of the heterosexual institution being granted to gay people.
Yes, that's precisely the problem.
No one has asserted that idea. What is revolutionary is the idea of struggle against heteronormativity. Frankly, the idea that gay identity is rooted in modern capitalism is so obvious it's practically redundant. It goes without saying, surely?
I don't speak for the entire queer liberation movement or those who participate within it.
For me, I support the abolition of marriage, but purely in an abstract sense. My opposition to gay marriage is entirely practical. As a strategy for liberation, calling for marriage equality or any rights is counter-intuitive to the struggle for liberation. Building those movements and fighting for those concessions is organisational incompetence.
I'm not entirely sure what you think requires explanation...
Last edited by The Feral Underclass; 27th August 2014 at 20:23. Reason: spelling and grammar
Yes, the vast majority of societies are dominated by people with a primarily heterosexual lens. Here is what I do not understand: What is it about marriage as it functions *today* that makes it fundamentally heterosexual? Because you are here also making an assumption about the nature of heterosexuality are you not? This explanation you provide for heteronormativity presupposes some kind of overarching heterosexist ideology. My point is that the prevailing and dominant assumptions you identify are ultimately rooted not in heterosexism, racism, sexism or sectarianism, but in the productive forces of the society at issue. I do not believe this is a strictly one way relationship, but those productive forces condition the character of those societies, including its assumptions about gender and sexuality, race and religion, etcetera.
I can't deny that most people engaged in heterosexual relationships and that heterosexual relationships constituted the norm, so to speak. But there are plenty of societies, even and perhaps especially intensely homophobic societies that enforce strict gender roles, that were accustomed to pervasive opportunistic homosexuality. Sometimes this was tacit, under the radar toleration, other times it was institutionalized, as it was at times in ancient Greece. The sexualities were not analogous to confessional identities the way that they are today, of course.
Are you suggesting that the monogamous two couple model is inherently heterosexual? Or are you suggesting that there is an essential attribute of marriage that exists across time and space?
Here we strongly disagree. Cultural and social practices are conditioned by the economic base of a society, and marriage is no different. Without resorting to crude determinism, the productive forces of a society absolutely condition the forms of sociocultural practices including marriage.
I think it is more a result of marriage changing, again, as it has over time. It is no accident that gay marriage is accompanied by a massive increase in female participation in the labor force outside of the household, as well as the rise in contraceptives and intentional childlessness. All of this changed the social and legal attributes of marriage as well.
Do you think that Sherry Wolf is wrong for suggesting otherwise? I mean, I myself do not see how opposing what the vast majority of LGBT people seem to want is practical or helps win over LGBT people to revolutionary politics.
As an aside, I'm gay, but this is not my primary area of concern.
The origin of the institution and its purpose in maintaining heterosexist domination hasn't altered.
I don't understand what we are at odds about? Accepting your analysis of how these things develop, i.e. from the material basis of society, does not negate the fundamental character of marriage being fundamentally heterosexual. I accept that the productive forces condition the character of society, and the character of that society is fundamentally heterosexual. And has been throughout history.
But remain completely and totally wedded to the cultural domination of heterosexuality.
Homosexual relationships in ancient Greece were strictly regulated and it was absolutely unheard of for a man not to be married to a woman. Homosexual relationships existed, as they existed in other cultures throughout history, but they were always confined into a structure where by heterosexuality was the dominant cultural dynamics. Even when homosexuality was practised it was practised under the regulations of heterosexual norms.
I am suggesting neither of those things.
You said: "the legal function of marriage is directly tied in to property relations. To the extent that legitimization of relationships is another function, the push for same-sex marriage would not support an inference that the modern institution is fundamentally for heterosexuals."
My argument has never been that marriage is fundamentally for heterosexuals, since that's clearly not the case. My argument has been that marriage is fundamentally a heterosexual institution. There is a profound difference between those things. I am not talking about how marriage is practically applied by heteronormative society, but about the foundations of reality as it has developed throughout history.
I accept that the materialist basis condition the forms of sociocultrual practices including marriage, and that form is fundamentally heterosexual.
I don't really understand what you're saying. It is demonstrably obvious that marriage has been permitted to gay people...
Look, I'm not disagreeing with your materialist analysis, I am arguing that there is more to it than that.
I'm not going to read that article.
If revolutionary strategy is predicated on what the vast majority of people want then I don't really see how it is possible to create a communist society. I don't know what your political objectives are, but as far as I am concerned, supporting marriage equality or gay rights is counter-productive to achieving my objectives. It therefore would be strategical incompetence of me to maintain support for it.
