Will Marriage Equality turn Queer Boys into Victorians?
Summary: If the Supreme Court finds that queerfolk have the right to marry, it will fundamentally alter the dynamic of America’s queer nation. Will sex continue to be a way gay dudes can share pleasant recreation together without necessarily entering into an institutionalized, legally-significant, relationship, or will two gay men sacking out together necessarily become a precursor to marriage? Will I have to make an honest man of the dude I may have had sex with last night? If the court rules in favor of marriage, we will find ourselves entering a curious and uncharted country composed in equal measure of anticipation and apprehension, an unexplored country in which we have no precedent to guide us, where we must make up new rules as we go along. It will be an uncertain and delicate time for the happy-go-lucky, the sexually adventurous, or the commitment-phobic.
By: Paul S. Marchand
“Be careful what you ask for, you just might get it.”
-Variously attributed so-called conventional wisdom
“After a time, you may find that having is not so pleasing a thing, after all, as wanting. It is not logical, but it is often true.”
-Star Trek: The Original Series, “Amok Time.” Teleplay by Theodore Sturgeon
"a beginning is a delicate time."
-Frank Herbert, Dune.
As the queer nation counts down toward the so-called Day of Decision when the Supreme Court announces its rulings in Hollingsworth v. Perry and U.S. v. Windsor, the two marriage cases, we find ourselves in a curious and uncharted country composed in equal measure of anticipation and apprehension, an unexplored country with neither precedent nor rules to guide us.
An old and dear friend --- a straight ally from the time many of us were more afraid of dying than were contemplating the possibility of marriage --- recently asked me a question I almost wish he had not asked. After having fought for so long for marriage, what will we do if the Court decides in our favor? Is it possible that the worst outcome might be “yes?”
Perhaps we should be careful what we ask for. If the Court finds that queerfolk have as much right to marry as do our straight neighbors, it is not unreasonable to foresee that we may find ourselves facing societal encouragement or even pressure to marry. If I take an appealing dude to bed, do I then have to make an honest man out of him? Or do he and I get a certain number of mulligans, a sort of free zone in which my dude and I may explore our personal and sexual compatibility without having to contemplate making honest men of one another?
The coming of marital liberty to the queer nation may well radically alter how gay men interact intimately with one another. While asking the fraught question of whether sex must necessarily open up a conversation about marriage may seem a bit much, a favorable decision in Hollingsworth nonetheless puts the issue front and center.
Now we should acknowledge that among our straight neighbors, there is a great deal of shared intimacy outside or even in spite of the existence of pretty much unrestricted access to marriage. Yet, for us, the sheer novelty of marital liberty may have the effect of raising a whole new set of potentially perverse and Victorian expectations with respect to congruency between sexual intimacy and marriage. Will we be able to continue to speak a language of sexual intimacy unconstrained by the need to institutionalize it? Will sex continue to be, as it has been for many of us, a pleasant form of recreation to be shared with a partner with whom we may not have a desire to form an institutionalized, legally significant, relationship, or will man-to-man intimacy necessarily become a precursor to marriage?
Not having the faculty of marriage has, to some extent, had a remarkably liberating effect upon our discourse. Queer pundit Andrew Sullivan has suggested -- and perhaps with some justice -- that one of the most distinctive marks of differencing between the gay community (and I address specifically that part of the LGBTQ community consisting of gay men) and our straight neighbors is our substantially greater degree of candor concerning things sexual. Because heretofore the faculty of marriage has been denied us, we have not felt ourselves constrained from discussing sex and sexuality more openly than do our married, straight neighbors. Will we find that saying “I do” in a marriage ceremony leads to saying “I mustn’t” when it comes to talking about sexual intimacy in a gay context?
I cannot know what awaits us if the Supreme Court decides that Ruth and Naomi or Jonathan and David are constitutionally entitled to the same liberty of marital contract enjoyed by their straight neighbors. But I do know that if the Day of Decision has the effect of lifting the ban, whether here in California or throughout the nation, our queer lives will never be the same.
It may not work to be commitment-phobic in whatever brave new world awaits us; confirmed bachelors take note. We may find ourselves living in a beginning, and as Frank Herbert observed in Dune, "a beginning is a delicate time."
After a time, we may find that having is not so pleasing a thing, after all, as wanting. It is not logical, but it is often true.
-XXX-
Paul S. Marchand is an attorney who lives in practices in Cathedral City, California. He served two terms on the city Council there, and was one of the first attorneys in California to litigate a marriage case, back two decades ago when he was slimmer and better looking than he is now. The matters discussed herein represent his own views, and are not intended as legal advice.
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