Response Post March 8

The Frequently Asked Questions about same sex marriage were facts I was mostly aware of previously, but I am always surprised to see how shocked others are to learn them. I think this is largely because a vast number of people, especially at Colgate, are in the privileged group that is unaffected by these holes in the civil rights set up by our government. This is one of the largest obstacles to the advancement of the homosexual civil rights movement; the “mainstreamers” have little motivation to correct problems that do not affect them. I think most people who read this would not hesitate to admit there is something inherently wrong with the way things are, but very few people would be motivated to do something about it. This is an age-old problem, but this generation has a new twist on it, I think. Our technological era allows us, if we choose, to have access to more information than ever before. It is obvious that there is no shortage of errors and injustice in our government and in our society – and even more in the world beyond our borders. Today’s technology provides us access to any and all of those issues, which allows people to participate (exclusively, if they so choose) in the movements that most affect them personally. It may sound like a strange argument, but I think that our mass exposure to the world’s problems might spread our efforts pretty thin on any one of them.

Ettelbrick’s argument also comes as no surprise. I know a large number of people (mostly straight) that claim to be against the institution of marriage for various reasons. It only makes sense that the same argument could exist in the homosexual spheres. I understand that people can love each other with out being married. Heck, lots of people who aren’t married love each other a lot more than people who are married. That’s obvious. It is a shame that our society puts so much pressure on those people to take part in a traditional institution solely because it is the norm. However, the structures of our society that Ettelbrick disagrees with exist for purposes beyond upholding norms and excluding “non-mainstream” people from being accepted. For instance, the visitation policies at hospitals exist for the safety and comfort of patients. I hate to make the argument that “the line has to be drawn somewhere,” but I can see why in this situation a spouse is an easy “yes” and a lover of any sex without a recognized title becomes a bit more complicated. It is for reasons like these that I think legalizing marriage should be a goal of the homosexual civil rights movement.

I agree with Ettelbrick that it will not be the end of the struggle. One of her main points seems to be that legalizing marriage will give the illusion that homosexuals have reached equality, and that will suck the wind from the sails of their progress. She essentially fears the pseudo-success that Susan Douglas talks about in Embedded Sexism. This is definitely something to be aware of, but not a reason to hold back from allowing gay marriage. Ettelbrick’s main concern is that legalizing marriage does not allow for more diversity, it just assimilates more people into a narrow idea of “normal.” She makes a good point but I think her own argument defeats her. People should be allowed to show their love in whatever means they feel appropriate and should not be pressured by society to conform to one concept of acceptable love. But the fact of the matter is that marriage is one of those options; it is one way in which people should be allowed to choose to celebrate their love. For that reason, I think, gay marriage should be legalized. I don’t think it will hinder the acceptance or celebration of difference; it just provides people who deserve to express their love in any way they chose with one more option.

Main Post 3.7

“Why do same-sex couples want to marry?” (FAQ)

This document outlines the differences between marriages and civil unions, and it answers the questions of why same-sex couples want to marry. The first paragraph of the document seemed so incredibly obvious to me, and it has never really occurred to me that some people are uneducated about same-sex marriage. It reads: “Many same-sex couples want the right to legally marry because they are in love…” (1)...it is a foreign concept to me that some people don’t understand this!

Next, the document outlines the specific rights that marriage provides for couples. I was unaware of some of these marriage rights, such as the one about hospital visitation. It saddens me that same-sex couples in long term relationships cannot have the automatic right to visit each other when they are hospitalized.

I especially liked the end of the document, because it talked about how civil unions are NOT separate but equal to marriage…”they are separate and unequal. And our society has tried separate before. It just doesn’t work”. I think this is a very strong argument for same-sex marriage.

“Since When is Marriage a Path to Liberation?” (Paula Ettelbrick)

Ettelbrick writes from a perspective that I have never been exposed to: she is a lesbian woman who does not want to right to same-sex marriage. Ettelbrick believes that same-sex marriage “will constrain us, make us more invisible, force our assimilation into the mainstream and undermine the goals of gay liberation” (306). It seems that she wants a new form of “marriage” for same-sex couples; one that recognizes the fact that there is an essential difference between gay/lesbian couples and straight couples. Ettelbrick discusses the fact that she is “fundamentally different from non-lesbian women”, and she does not want same-sex marriage to be accepted as the norm because it fails to recognize the difference between gay relationships and straight relationships She argues that our legal system does not embrace difference, and it only supports sameness.

I agree with most of what Ettelbrick says, but I strongly disagree with her point about the legitimacy of gay and lesbian sex between non-married couples. She argues that if gay marriage was widely accepted, then the only form of legitimate sex would be when two people are married. She mentions that non-married sexually active women face a sigma in today’s society because they are having sex before marriage. I think this may have been true many years ago, but it is no longer an upheld stigma. In fact, I would argue that it is considered “the norm” for women to have sex before marriage today. Very few straight women wait until marriage to have sex, and therefore I do not think that same-sex marriage would promote the idea that the only legitimate form of sex is when two people gay people are married.

Ettelbrick concludes her article with a discussion of how many people tend to see same-sex marriage as a cure-all for the inequalities that same-sex couples are experiencing. She argues that the issue is much more complicated, and cannot be solved with the legalization of gay marriage. She concludes: “we will be liberated only when we are respected and accepted for our differences and the diversity we provide to this society. Marriage is not a path to liberation” (308).

“Soldier in a Long White Dress” (Vaccaro)

Andrea Vaccaro’s piece is extremely personal and eye-opening. She writes about her experiences fighting for the right to same-sex marriage. She discusses her experience buying a wedding dress with her father at age twenty. She bought this dress to wear in a political demonstration promoting same-sex marriage. I was impressed with Vaccaro’s extreme activism, even at such a young age. Even when she was in high school, Vaccaro was fighting for her rights. She was the leader of the LGBTQ group, and spent many hours working for her cause. In college, she held many internship positions and was extremely active, while maintaining a very high GPA.

The most poignant part of Vaccaro’s piece is when she describes her experience protesting with her partner, Lauren, and other friends. They were granted the right to protest at a local post office, but the post office never mentioned that they would be closed all day. When they encountered the closed post office, the group decided to protest along side a highway. They were proud because they made lesbians “visible”, since thousands of cars passed by them. They experienced a lot of discrimination that day, but they also gained some support. Finally, the police told them to leave, and they ran away in their wedding dresses.

Vaccaro closes her piece by describing her wedding the Lauren. She knows that by marrying Lauren, her life will change. She will continue to fight for equality. She feels the need to establish her identity in the word, because most people assume that she is a straight woman, married to a man. This must be extremely difficult for her, to have to establish her identity, because people wrongly assume things about her.

A Response to Literature on Same-Sex Marriage

What captivated me form this week’s assigned reading was Ettelbrick’s comment about lesbian and gay liberation being linked with the women’s liberation movement. Her comment made me think about all of the issues that are placed on the women’s rights agenda such as intersex and transgender identities, problems with patriarchy, global human rights issues like female genital cutting and domestic issues with media representation. That’s a lot on one plate and makes me think about how misleading the term “women’s issues” is when I realize that this movement actually encompasses all gender issues, which throws men and intersex people into play as well. This one sentence from Ettelbrick’s piece made me think about how complex and multivariegated the feminist agenda is.

After reading the FAQ and Vaccaro’s piece, my mind was filled with benefits of legalizing same-sex marriages. It was a no-brainer that legalizing same-sex marriages would lead to social justice and create a domino effect from then on. Like what Amy from TriFem posted, I was absolutely shocked when I read that married couples receive 1,138 federal benefits just for purchasing a relatively cheap marriage license and only one type of relationship is deemed worthy of these benefits – heterosexual ones.

However, Ettelbrick’s piece provided an alternate point of view on this issue and actually challenged all of the proposed future benefits same-sex couples would gain after marriage is legalized. Ettelbrick calls for an elongation of our field of vision and to think beyond legal rights. She wants to get across that legal rights don’t always translate to social justice. In fact, obtaining this right might actually complicate things as the public eye might view that as a final step and eradicate same-sex couples’ problems from their agenda. Ettelbrick uses the metaphor of a trap. Not only is this goal overweighing all of the other same-sex liberation goals, but it’s also dismissing all the flaws that marriage has as an institution. Marriage is not a flawless institution. In it’s history, it has been heteronormative, highly patriarchic, and even oppressive. Why feed into this social system then given all of its flaws? To fix this, Ettelbrick proposes a de-institutionalization of marriage. Her language in describing this new vision of marriage sounds wonderful, but I don’t know how it functions and what this de-institutionalized marriage would look like in our society. I want to understand this more.

Vaccaro’ piece was very interesting to read because it came from a female college student’s perspective and it blew my mind away reading about how she was able to translate passion for her identity and legal rights into activism at such a young age. It was truly inspiring to read that snippet of her biography. The section about her protest location being closed reminded me about a concept I had learned about in my peace and conflict studies class – the second image of power. The city isn’t outright denying Vaccaro and her colleagues, but by failing to notify the protesters that the venue was closed, the city seemed to be mobilizing their agenda against theirs. Reading this made me angry because I know how much it takes to try to organize a protest. It’s an extremely long and arduous process to contact city officials and to obtain the necessary permits, which come with a monetary cost! They not only have to pay for their freedom of speech, but they were chased by the police for showing the city who they were. Instead of applauding and rewarding these courageous, college first-years, our society shuns them and sweeps them away like vermin.