I would just as soon be tied in a burlap sack and tossed off a bridge as married, but I'm gonna be pissed off if this all comes to naught. And ecstatic if it doesn't.
Alison Bechdel, graphic artist and blogger, writing about waiting for the veto override on same sex marriage in Vermont yesterday.
This has been a big week for same sex marriage. First we had Iowa join the likes of MA and CT and allow same sex marriage, then Vermont became the first state to legalize marriage via legislative means. Also yesterday, the Washington DC City Council voted to recognize out of state gay and lesbian marriages. It's only the first step for DC, as all legislative matters have to be approved by Congress (taxation without representation, but that's a whole other post).
It really does feel like the tides are turning, despite what happened with Prop 8 in CA this November. The reason I liked Bechdel's quote though, is because it kind of reflects my ambivalence about the whole gay marriage thing. I've written about this before and as things develop and evolve I keep reacting to it.
I still think that it would be best for everyone if married people (straight or gay) weren't given special rights (tax, health care, inheritance or otherwise). Do I think it will be easier to dismantle these rights if gay people can get married too? Probably not. Honestly, it might even be harder once queers can marry. The main problem is there are few people fighting to reshape the institution of marriage and the state benefits attached to it. Why? Because not very many people want to give up their privilege for the benefit of others.
So while I have a very emotional response to the good news about gay marriage, it's coupled with a tinge of ambivalence and worry that this will be the end of our fight.
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I think there are some benefits to marriage that come from married people being, by default, "family". They should not be taken away. Like hospital visits.
Taxes, social security, and many other things are pretty screwed up, with the primary advantage being to married people with only one partner working.
But insurance? How many more uninsured people would there be if "family" weren't granted insurance? And how many of them would be women.
How about Canadian-style single payer insurance - so everybody in the country is covered, irregardless of martial status?
That would solve that problem - and the uninsured and underinsured problems - in one fell swoop.
Canada (it may just be one of the provinces, I don't entirely remember) also has an interesting domestic partnership law that allows two people to acknowledge each other as literally that, domestic partners, without any presumption of "marital" relations but some of the formal-family-recognition of marriage. This is in addition/parallel to gender-blind marriage law, creating more ways for people to get recognition for non-traditional family structures and lifestyles.
In taking away those rights, I mean they shouldn't be limited to who you are married to (in the eyes of the state).
If one of my health insurance benefits is that I can extend those benefits to someone, what if instead of needing to be married to them, I was simply allowed to choose who got those benefits?
Same thing for hospital visitation. Shouldn't I get to decide who visits me, regardless of their relationship to me in the eyes of the state?
All of these things would help us expand our ideas of how family is defined, and not only benefit people in particular types of relationships.
"Same thing for hospital visitation. Shouldn't I get to decide who visits me, regardless of their relationship to me in the eyes of the state?"
And if you're incapacitated, and the hospital doesn't know the status of the person visiting you and you can't speak up? Are you suggesting we all must fill out medical and legal proxies, at significant cost, rather than having a default that would apply in 99% of situations?
"I still think that it would be best for everyone if married people (straight or gay) weren't given special rights (tax, health care, inheritance or otherwise)."
There are several hundred substantive rights that we've granted by statute... you're saying that you think it would be best if all of them were to be taken away? What's your reasoning?
Yes, we'd have to figure out new processes for situations like the one you mention. Right now the default system (where only the state's definition of "family" get access in those circumstances) does not work for a lot of people.
The legal route is not the easiest necessarily, but I'm sure we could figure out a system by which people can make it clear who they want with them in the hospital, who can make decisions for them, etc.
My reasoning is that rights should not be tied to one's relationship with the nuclear family. It shouldn't matter if you've won the "marriage lottery" or if you happen to have a good relationship with your blood relatives.
I agree with you on that - some of the closest people in my life have absolutely no blood relation to me - and I'm estranged from most of my actual blood relatives.
Also, I'm not married, so I don't have any of the legal advantages that married people get.
I just wanted to point out that Congress does not have to approve DC Legislation. They have the right to veto it or they can do nothing. They do not have to affirmatively accept it.
Thanks for the clarification. It's confusing! Also my understanding was that this was only a preliminary vote, that they will vote again soon and that Mayor Fenty has to sign it before it even gets the congressional level.
The one thing I think is important about the idea of 'marriage' as distinct from legal/medical/economic benefits is the idea of making a public commitment to a chosen relationship, and incorporating that chosen relationship into your family-of-origin ties. Maybe this should not be a civil (that is, legal) practice at all? But because not everyone is religious, I'm reluctant to not have a secular framework in place for people wanting to go that route. So . . . I'm ambivalent. Is it just total nonsense to imagine marriage as a civil recognition of relationship without all of the material privilege that comes along with it?
Great post, Miriam. The plain fact is, marriage benefits are a method of coercion. It's the state's way of saying, "do what we ask and we'll give you these goodies."
My live-in boyfriend ended up in the hospital this weekend, and I was afraid I wouldn't be let in to see him. Instead, not only was I allowed in, I was given multiple assurances that he and I were considered family, regardless of our marital status. Great, right? THEN they informed me that our entire household (me, him, and his father, who suffers from dementia) would be considered "family" for the purposes of determining how much we would have to pay (he doesn't have health insurance). See, he can't be on my insurance at work because we aren't married, but the hospital still considers us a family when they determine household income for financial assistance.
We weren't thinking about marriage, but we are now. The system forces us into it, one dislocated knee at a time.
When I first saw what Bechdel had to say about gay marriage in only 2 lines, I said to myself: exactly.
While I think for the most part, when it's come to gay marriage I've been really troubled by my own nagging ambivalence, I also tend to forget about how many other people feel pulled in all kinds of directions over this issue as well. And I guess I'm starting to feel as though maybe a little ambivalence might not be such a terrible stance to organize around if we're talking about not solely LGBTQ civil rights, but changing the meanings and experiences that come with being a queer person more broadly.
So I'm not totally sure what political organizing around ambivalence might look like, but I feel like it's worth consideration if we believe that on the one hand, queer people deserve basic equalities re. civil rights, and on the other hand we see the limits of what "equality" can actually mean. Because it just seems to me like there should be/ needs to be room for both of these (conflicting, contradictory) sentiments if activists really want to imagine and effect meaningful changes.
you echo my thoughts exactly. great post!
The problem as I see it isn't so much the existance of marriage, but the difficulty or impossiblity for unmarried people to acquire those rights. On the other hand, requiring separate legal documents for everyone for each of those (inheritance, health care proxy, visitation rights, parental rights, etc.) would be impractical, particularly fot those who can't afford a lawyer. Perhaps there could be some sort of domestic partnership, where the people involved could choose (from a list) which rights were involved.
Then there are certain rights/obligations of marriage that are more tied to being "family" and that probably should go together: spousal immunity, support obligations, tax-free inheritance, etc. These involve certain trade-offs, and separating them out individually could be problematic.
Wow, I completely agree.
My personal belief is that marriage should not be tied to the government, instead civil unions should be granted to any couple--same-sex, opposite-sex, romantic, non-romantic--who wants those rights. Those who want a traditional "marriage" in the eyes of "god" can do so with their respective religious communities, and there are increasing numbers of LGBT-friendly churches.
That being said, I've been active in the marriage equality movement in California because I don't foresee the elimination of civil marriages any time soon. Although I desperately want a major system overhaul, at the time I am willing to work within the system to make it a little more just. But I would be much more ecstatic about the government completely relinquishing control over marriages and expanding their definition of an appropriate civil union.
The main problem is there are few people fighting to reshape the institution of marriage and the state benefits attached to it. Why? Because not very many people want to give up their privilege for the benefit of others.
While I agree with the sentiment here (as well as the idea that the institution of marriage and its benefits should be reshaped), I don't necessarily see progressives fighting for gay marriage rather than the dismantling of marriage rights altogether as them "not wanting to give up their privilege for the benefit of others."
I think it has more to do with that fact that it's obviously going to be a bit easier to change the laws to include a group of people, rather than reshape the entire institution from the ground up (which would clearly take much longer and be met with much more resistance). I have a hard time believing it's people going "sure, the gays can marry, but I'll be a monkey's uncle if those damned singles are going to horn in on my tax breaks."
I really want to believe that it's a case of "baby steps," of people wanting to grant the largest number of rights to as many exempt groups as they can as fast as possible. I also believe that once the marriage blanket is extended to cover those previously excluded, it will be a lot easier to view the institution as fluid and evolving, and therefore be easier to redefine its privileges in much broader strokes.
Fingers crossed, anyway...
I think it's not only in spite of Prop 8, but because of Prop 8, that this is happening. Prop 8 not only provided an opportunity to show how gay people are like everyone else and therefore how irrational anti-gay legislation is, but also to show how incredibly hurtful it is. As terrible as it was that the thing passed, it's become a real rally point...hopefully (speaking as a Californian) we won't have to take one for the team too much longer and we can get this thing overturned.
Definitely agree on decoupling (no pun intended) marriage from the basic benefits of living in society. The unmarried, and even more the devotedly single, end up significantly subsidizing those who are legally paired up.
Thank you for expressing the ambivalences I've been having myself and haven't been able to articulate.
I mean, I am completely for gay marriage. I think it's entirely unfair that same-sex couples can't get married in most places. But at the end of the day, the focus on *marriage* rather than trying to expand the rules to suit a range of possible domestic situations means I probably won't be able to live my life the way I'd like to. The career I am aiming for involves a lot of moving around between countries and my ideal living situation is living with one or two extremely close friends - but last I checked, "my best friend has a job here" doesn't exactly have the same effect on visa and immigration as "my wife/husband has a job here." It's frustrating.
I get into arguments with my right-hand-gay-man frequently about this particular issue because of MY ambivalence on the issue. I do not believe in marriage. I believe that marriage is an inherently patriarchal institution. It's not an institution I believe should still exist in the rise of feminism, let along an institution I care to be a part of. HOWEVER, I do not believe that we will be able to destroy this institution. It's not possible at this point. So, we must have the same equal rights in the institution that is in place.
I totally agree. We need to stop drawing the line for these benefits at marriage. (I'm thinking of the book Beyond Gay and Straight Marriage.) I'm bi, so there's a 50/50 shot I'll end up with someone I can legally marry. No thanks. I'm going to a lawyer, I'm going to work out as much as I can without getting married. Power of attorney, living will, incorporation, whatever I have to do to get the legal rights that I want to share with my partner. It may not be all the benefits of marriage or whatever, but I think more people should consider going this route because it forces you to think through what marriage means to you and what you want to get out of it.