The recent rejection of marriage equality by the voters in Maine is already generating the expected barrage of introspection and recrimination. Alex Blaze’s analysis of the aftermath of Maine is worth reading. I especially like the post’s title.
I personally have always rejected marriage as a bourgeois institution, an instrument for maintaining the social and economic order. As gay liberation = feminism (and where it does not it bloody well should), I have never felt any need to claim the right to marry for homosexuals as well. However, other people disagreed, and I have now lived comfortably in a country where homosexuals can marry for most of this decade. And nothing much changed. OK, we now have gay dudes dressing up in suits and living out their bourgeois fantasies, but teenage boys still need to ridicule queers in order to prove and produce their masculinity.
It therefore does not come as a surprise that American activists are now increasingly questioning the focus on marriage. Geoffrey R. Stone argued in the Huffington Post that ‘marriage’ is just a word after all. As civil unions seem to be a attainable goal in the short term, I would recommend focusing on that to my American friends. Gay rights, as any struggle for emancipation, is a never-ending campaign.
The feelings of despondency is understandable, especially now that Europe has made so much progress on gay rights without the fabric of society shredding. In Europe gay marriage has become the norm – the countries that have not yet embraced it will inevitably catch up in the not too distant future. But it seems this is yet another feature of the 21st century Americans are still not ready for.