Breaking the Spell: Rethinking queer community

[SecretAgentMa'am]

Originally Posted by lettertodaddy

Just a quick note before I dash off to work. They decided to block logins to this site the other day.

One of the things that makes me feel like an outsider these days is the assimilationist politics of groups like the HRC and Marriage Equality USA.

This is a sentiment that I've heard quite a bit. My wife and I live in a house in the suburbs. Our fence is chain link, we don't have any kids at home, it's just us, the dog, the cats, the lizard, and a vegetable garden in the back yard. She goes to work in a big office 5 days a week. I'm a full time student. We barbecue with the neighbors and take the dog to the dog park. What, exactly, is so terrible about that? You say you're not out to malign anyone who wants that kind of life, but then you call us "assimilationists" and talk about how we want to be "as good as" straight people. Have you ever asked a queer person who lives in the suburbs and wants to get married *why* they feel that way? It's not about being "as good as" straight people or about assimilation.

I'm absolutely with you that family is more than just people who are related by biology or marriage. I'm also a realist. Marriage has quite a few benefits that my wife and I need, and dismantling marriage as an institution isn't happening in my lifetime. It's not happening in this century, or most likely even in the next several centuries. Marriage as an institution is just about as old as humanity, and it's here to stay. So, since marriage isn't going anywhere, I really don't understand how anyone who doesn't currently have the right to marry the person(s) they love can be against gaining that right for as many people as is humanly possible. And yes, for me, that includes "non-nuclear" families.

So yes, I tend to get a little hostile while a queer person tells me they don't think my wife and I should be able to get married. To me, they're making the same argument as the religious right who are fighting against us (that we shouldn't be able to get married), they're just using a different justification.