Along with the majority of this country’s population, I received the news of the legalization of same-sex marriage with elation. Yes, the ruling would confer a plurality of tangible benefits to millions of people who, for all accounts, had been second-class citizens until June 26. And yes, it was instinctive of me to respond to anything deemed beneficial to us gays as unquestionably positive. Yet as days and weeks progressed, I found myself beginning to question my initial jubilation and instead came to believe that the ruling acted as the death of the possibility of a radical, alternative queer culture.
Even now, I find myself torn between celebrating the benefits of legalized marriage that will improve the lives of millions and also understanding the multitude of things it will not do. Same-sex marriage will not end police harassment of queer people of color and the epidemic of transgender homicides. As my straight friends’ profile pictures became filtered with rainbows, my sense of solidarity transitioned to irritation as I realized that, yet again, a minority’s symbol was being appropriated as something trendy.
As a political act, I find the acceptance of same-sex marriage to be inherently suspect. Many vocal supporters — I think of Hillary Clinton especially — were against the furthering of our civil rights not too long ago. Where were all the enlightened baby boomers when gays were dying in scores during the AIDS crisis, when we were true pariahs to society? The sudden embrace smacks of fair-weather friendship and fad. What’s most sinister is the cultural implications of the Supreme Court’s decision. By legalizing same-sex marriage, queer people have been absorbed by heteronormativity. We have been normalized, and in doing so we have been married to the framework of America — still an imperialistic, profoundly unequal and racist society. One must only compare the dominant discourse surrounding movements like Black Lives Matter with the peachy procession of the marriage debate in order to expose the farce of contemporary American egalitarianism.
The right to marry should not have been the most compelling goal in the struggle for gay rights. Although homosexuality is now accepted — in some cases embraced — it is done so in an exclusive way, in which gays are provided a designated space in society to act out their life roles. True progress would mean a society in which every person can at least conceive of being attracted to the same sex. It is a world like this that would represent a true victory for humanity — a queering of society. The embrace of fluidity in orientations and genders is the only way in which the alienation of binaries can be erased.
Marriage is an undeniably classist institution, and in this ruling I suspect that the financial clout of the white male, gay elite has finally borne fruit. To condemn only the motives and practices of straight America would be disingenuous, however; the collapse of gay radicalism must also be noted as being largely our fault. Historically, two parallel movements formed in gay intellectual circles after the societal outing that began through consciousness-raising in the 1960s. There was the assimilationist, civically oriented tendency that strove toward acceptance and a more militant dynamic that sought to use homosexuality to fight capitalism and patriarchy. In opposition to striving toward acceptance came the Gay Shame movement in the 1990s, which celebrated our differences from America’s oppressive heteronormativity.
Gays who viewed activism as gauche, or who exalted the right to marry at the expense of the many issues facing the LGBTQ community, are responsible for the death of queer subculture and the liberating, perverse world of its underground. Our communitarianism has been reduced to a corporate spectacle of bitchiness that serves to titillate the straight mind. The true victory of the court’s decision was to make queerness palatable to the straight world. In doing so, they neutralized any threat to power structures the LGBTQ world could have offered.
– Alec Weinstein is an undeclared sophomore.