A DIFFERENT KIND OF LIBERATION
The queer movement hasn't always been this obsessed about getting hitched. Forty years ago this week, drag queens and others fought back against the cops who were raiding a gay bar called the Stonewall Inn in New York City's West Village. Three days of protests led to the creation of the Gay Liberation Front (GLF), a revolutionary group dedicated to the sexual liberation of all people. GLFers weren't looking to walk down the aisle or form binary couples. In a desire to "abolish existing social institutions," as the NYC branch of GLF said in its statement of purpose, some GLFers explored polyamory (more than one relationship at a time).
That's why I edited Smash the Church, Smash the State! The Early Years of Gay Liberation, just published by City Lights Books, a collection of writings by former GLF members and other gay liberationists. I wanted to commemorate the 40th anniversary of Stonewall and the birth of GLF with a reminder of who we were and what we did.
After all these years, I still don't want to head to the chapel to get married.
When it really comes down to it, gay marriage is a conservative issue. It's about wanting to fit in, to be like everyone else. Beyond the important issues of tax breaks and next-of-kin status — and the fact that if any institution exists, it shouldn't discriminate against queers — marriage is ultimately a means of normalizing binary queer relationships, especially for gay men who have always enjoyed the freedom to be promiscuous. It's a way to try and rein in our libidos, though the prevalence of extramarital sex among straight couples — 50 percent for women, 60 percent for men, according to a recent issue of Journal of Couple and Relationship Therapy — shows that marriage doesn't come with a chastity belt.
It also doesn't come with any guarantees, as researchers discovered in Sweden, where queers were able to contract for same-sex partnerships from 1995 until recently, when full same-sex marriage was instituted. According to a study by the Institute for Marriage and Public Policy, Swedish queers have been divorcing in high numbers, like their straight counterparts, who have a divorce rate that's just a little higher than the United States.
For queers in Sweden, that's the price of being normal.
Tommi Avicolli Mecca, who has been a queer activist since he was involved with the Gay Liberation Front at Temple University in Philadelphia in the early 1970s, is editor of Smash the Church, Smash the State! The Early Years of Gay Liberation (City Lights Books).
Mark Barnes
Gay marriage is absolutely as worthy and important a cause as any of the others Mecca mentions. Whatever your thoughts about marriage (personally, I think it's kind of quaint at best, idiotic at worst), unless it's done away with, gay taxpayers have as much right to it as straight ones. And think about this: Do you really want yet another generation of gay kids in America growing up with the stigma of being second-class citizens in the eyes of the state? There's plenty of goodwill, money and time to be volunteered here in San Francisco...until activists start wasting that time slagging off other activists over "prioritization." The people I know who worked tirelessly against Proposition 8 are already bummed out, and in some cases, leaning toward apathy and resignation; the last thing they need is for others to start insinuating that their efforts never really counted for anything to begin with. That's precisely the sort of rhetoric that drives people away from activism and philanthropy for keeps.
Mr Mecca, I have much respect for you and your work and I wish you continued success. Now please, get back to that good work and let others do the same. In whatever way they chose to do so.
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