Same-Sex Marriage Revived: Feminist Critique and Legal Strategy

Abstract

In June 2003 the UK government published proposals for a civil partnership registration scheme for same-sex couples that would confer almost all the legal rights and responsibilities of marriage. The paper discusses its provisions in the context of the debates on same-sex marriage over the past decade and argues that they hardly represent any advance on existing rights and that same-sex marriage will inevitably be won in the UK. The author herself is unenthusiastic about marriage, and concludes that lesbians and gay men should not let themselves be assimilated into a heterosexual model, but should draw attention to the potential for our relationships to act as better models for all relationships, inside or outside marriage.

Bisexuality, Slippery Slopes, and Multipartner Marriage

“…Mainstream lobbying groups have construed the question of relationship recognition for LGBT intimacies and families as a question of marriage equality. This strategy has always been contested by feminist, queer-inspired or anarchist LGBTQ activists who see marriage as an implicitly heteronormative institution and a status that monopolises privilege (Auchmuty, 2004;Polikoff, 2009;Warner, 1999;Whitehead, 2012). In this paper, I have not engaged in close detail with the critique of the politics of marriage (see Klesse, 2016 for a more thorough discussion).…”

‘By partner we mean ...’: Alternative geographies of ‘gay marriage’

“…The neo-liberal privatized citizen who benefits from same sex marriage is thus differentiated from those who are delegimitated through this legislation (Boyd and Young, 2003;Halberstam, 2003) or those who never will be recognized in these contexts (Butler, 2004). 'Homonormative' gay men (and at times lesbians) are those who become assimilated into capitalist hegemonic structures, that reproduce particular (privatized, monogamous, consumer-based) forms of domesticity (Boyd and Young, 2003;Davis, 2005;Duggan, 2002;Halberstam, 2003), with same sex marriage celebrations becoming a very particular part of visible gay male consumption (Auchmuty, 2004;Peel and Harding, 2008). Hennessey argues that: Domestic partnerships and gay marriages that redefine sexuality only in terms of rights for gays (or straight marriage resisters) leave unquestioned or even directly promote capitalism's historical stake in the relations amongst family, labor, and consumption.…”

Ambiguous symbolisms: recognising customary marriage and same-sex marriage in South Africa

“…Generally, the only references to race in the discourses in the United Kingdom, Canada and the United States were to draw on civil rights analogies, particularly ‘separate but equal’ but also (primarily in the United States) anti-miscegenation analogies; and class differences were noted only to support fiscally conservative arguments for same-sex marriage, such as saving the taxpayer money on welfare payments to unrecognised same-sex couples (see, for example, Stonewall, 2004) or encouraging the interdependence and responsibility of marriage, particularly for low-income couples and ‘uncivilised’ (sexually promiscuous) gay men (Eskridge, 1996). Sexism and gender were almost entirely overlooked (see also, Auchmuty, 2004; 2007; Young and Boyd, 2006).…”