(The following essay was written by Gingerbread Witch in 2008. Gingerbread Witch is happy for it to be viewed and shared, however, anyone seeking to reproduce it as their own work shall face the full extent of her wrath).
Introduction
The Australian government recently announced that it will reform various pieces of legislation removing elements which are discriminatory towards non-heterosexuals with the exception, of course, of same-sex marriage and adoption rights (Schubert 2008). These reforms have been widely celebrated by many non-heterosexuals. There are, however, many who argue that in refusing to make same-sex marriage and adoption available, the reforms do not go far enough.
Weeks (1991) defines ‘heterosexism’ as ‘compulsive heterosexuality’. Thus, it is clear that marriage, as legally defined, is a heterosexist model. The question of the extent to which families are based on heterosexist models is more complex, for there is no clear-cut legal requirement that marriage be an element of family life. Indeed, the entire concept of family is fluid and constantly changing. The traditional nuclear family model is, however, the idealised family form in Australia. This model consists of a man and a woman who are married and have one or more biological children.
In this essay, I will argue that legal defence of marriage as an exclusively heterosexual institution reinforces heterosexism in families and in other institutions. In doing so, I also want to acknowledge the need to further encourage a variety of viable and attractive alternatives to marriage and reproduction so that individuals are genuinely able to choose how they want to ‘be’.
I will begin by offering an overview of the arguments of authors who have discussed non-heterosexuals experiences of youth, communities and families. I will then offer an analysis of a recent exchange between the Prime Minister and a young gay male in an effort to illustrate the debate about same-sex marriage which is currently taking place in Australia. Finally, I will outline the arguments of authors who address the issue of whether or not marriage is of any value to non-heterosexuals.
Moment of difference
It is difficult to get around the reality that most people grow up in heterosexual households which resemble, to some extent, a nuclear-family type of model (ABS 2008). This can be difficult for non-heterosexual youth who often experience rejection or violence when disclosing their sexuality to their families. Mayo (2006) has argued that heteronormativity in institutions such families, schools (in part through sex education) and churches often fail to offer queer children the ‘sense of futurity’ enjoyed by non-queer children. This is made even worse because queer children often do not have access to the communities of which they are likely to eventually become members. Further, Mayo argues that queer youth present a ‘challenge to traditional family forms, autonomy and sexuality’ which is seldom recognised by these institutions (p. 487).
Mayo (2006) acknowledges that ‘linking sexuality to family-like commitment’ (as happens with the idea of same-sex marriage) may ultimately justify privileging same-sex couples based on their ‘similarities with reproductive heterosexual couples’ (p. 479). Even so, Mayo argues that, given the current social context which aggressively prohibits same-sex couples’ access to marriage and denies queer youth the same rights of citizenship extended to their non-queer counterparts, the ‘idea that one might plan for future relationships may at least give queer kids a way to imagine themselves as part of the social fabric, as people whose choices and attachments will matter to others’ (p. 473).
While negative coming out experiences certainly exist, some non-heterosexuals have very positive experiences of coming out. Gorman-Murray (2008) has investigated narratives of ‘coming out stories’. He found that some non-heterosexual youth have found their families to be supportive of their sexuality as well as encouraging the development of their identities. He argues that these homes become somewhat ‘queered’ as these families, despite being heterosexual, are able to reject heterosexism. Further, for the non-heterosexual youths who have these experiences, their family home comes to signify a site of ‘resistance to heterosexism and support for the ongoing development’ of their identities (p. 32). In other words, heterosexual households and family members have the capacity to accept and affirm sexual difference without feeling as though their own ‘sense of self’ is under threat. This, argues Gorman-Murray, educes a form ‘of heterosexual identity which actively contests hegemonic constructions of heterosexuality as ‘normative’ and ‘proper’’ (p. 39).
Non-heterosexuals face specific barriers to social-participation from the moment they are aware of their sexuality. Many things, such as family, social networks and jobs, occur as seemingly natural and normal course of life progression for heterosexuals. Even when, as Gorman-Murray (2008) has suggested, considerable support and encouragement is found within families of origin, non-heterosexual youth still lack a sense of likeness, as Mayo (2006) argued, in that they often do not have access to the communities which they are likely to eventually become members of.
Everyday Experiments
‘New stories about sexual and intimate life emerge’... ‘when there is a new audience ready to hear them in communities of meaning and understanding, and when newly vocal groups can have their experiences validated in and through them. This in turn gives rise to new demands for recognition and validation as the new narratives circulate. These demands may be the expressions of a minority, but they resonate with broader changes in intimate life’ (Weeks 2000 p. 215).
In non-heterosexual communities or social-networks, the language of the family is frequently adopted ‘to describe a variety of selected relationships, which includes lovers, possibly ex-lovers, intimate friends, as well as blood relatives’ (Weeks 2001 p. 48). Weeks (2001) argues that these ‘families of choice’ ‘do family’ similarly to heterosexuals (p. 49). Rather than mimicking heterosexual models, this is indicative of the reality that non-heterosexuals often develop close intimate bonds with people who are not biologically related to them. Conversely, some non-heterosexuals feel uncomfortable using ‘family’ to describe these relationships on the basis that ‘family’ is an ‘’institution’ which has so often excluded them’ and persists as the ‘perpetuation of an exclusively heterosexual mode of being’ (p. 16). Further, as non-heterosexuals increasingly focus on ‘family’ and intimate relationships, an ‘important shift in the cultural politics of sexual non-conformity’ begins to emerge (p. 13).
Similarly, Weston (1993) explains that ‘families we choose’ bring ‘friends, lovers, and children together under a single concept,’ and claims that rather than imitating heterosexual family models, ‘gay kinship’ signifies a ‘historic transformation’ (p. 392). She argues that seeing the possibility of developing intimate yet not sexual relationships amongst non-heterosexuals led to a ‘key historical development that paved the way for the emergence of lesbian and gay “community”’, and later for the emergence of ‘the ideological opposition between biological family and families we choose’ (p. 398). Whereas ‘family’ language was once used in lesbian and gay communities to describe a ‘sisterhood’ or ‘brotherhood’, it has developed into a language referring to more interpersonal relationships amongst non-heterosexuals (p. 408). Families we choose, she goes on to argue, are defined ‘in opposition to the biological family’ and opening up possibilities for non-heterosexuals to act as agents in creating ‘culture into lesbian and gay social organization’ (p. 408).
In conducting field research on gay male intimacy is Los Angeles, Stacey (2005) found that gay men in ‘El Lay’ revealed a ‘host of familial desires, behaviors, patterns, and conflicts by no means unfamiliar to mainstream heterosexual culture or to feminist criticism’. She argues, however, that ‘the gender difference (or similarity) of the usual suspects helps to illuminate, and perhaps to challenge, many otherwise reified conventions of gender and sexual practice’. It also ‘raises cultural curtains that allow us to inspect some of the backstage props and cultural stage sets in which we ordinarily enact our particular gender, sexual, and familial scripts’ (p. 1931).
Weeks (2000) argues that new stories will emerge when there is an audience ready to listen to them (p. 215). Stacey’s (2005) research supports this argument. She explains that ‘popular discourses about safe-sex, the “gayby” boom, marriage, domestic partnerships and “families we choose”’ offered the participants in her study the opportunity to imagine what their ‘familial prospects’ might be. They ‘represent the first cohort of gay men young enough to contemplate parenthood outside heterosexuality and mature enough to be in a position to choose or reject it’ (p. 1916).
Marriage as a legally defended heterosexual institution
‘I’ve been with my partner, my boyfriend, for, like, nearly two years. We have the support of our family, our friends, our whole community. Why can’t we get married? What’s the problem?’
This question was asked of the Prime Minister when he recently appeared on an episode of ABC’s Q&A. He replied: ‘The Marriage Act in Australia is very explicit about it being between a man and a woman’... ‘That is the position of my party’... ‘That is the position I hold personally...’ (Q&A 22 May 2008). Two issues in this exchange are telling. The first is that the person posing the question, a (presumably) gay male, found it necessary to frame the question defensively as opposed to asserting his question in a rights-based frame. His choice to justify the validity and legitimacy of his relationship by drawing attention to the fact that it had been legitimated elsewhere suggests a need to make his relationship appear as normal, like everyone else’s.
The second interesting issue is in the answer. Clearly the man asking the question is aware of the Marriage Act, as well as the position of the Labor Party and the Prime Minister on the issue of same-sex marriage. His question was not a what question, but a why question, he wanted to know why his relationship wasn’t good enough to be granted the recognition of marriage. The Prime Minister’s answer that marriage ‘is between a man and woman’ can then be understood to mean that the only forms of relationships worthy of marriage are heterosexual relationships, to the exclusion of all others. Thus, heterosexuality is more deserving. You want to get married? Become straight.
To argue that marriage should be an institution exclusive to heterosexuals because that’s what the law dictates is in any case a weak argument, using a fallacy of circular reasoning. While the legislation may explain the way things are, it does not explain why they are that way, or whether they ought to be that way. To put the circularity of the argument another way; ‘Of course marriage is between a man and a woman’... ‘Because it’s [same-sex marriage] illegal. And why is it illegal? Because marriage is between a man and a woman’ (Pobjie 2008). The inability or unwillingness on the part of those who make these arguments to reflect on their reasoning any more deeply suggests that what is not being said may be more telling than what is being said.
Moral panic and ‘the family’
Many responses to the issue of same-sex marriage reflect the paranoid fear that it poses a threat to the ‘traditional’ or ‘nuclear’ family model. The idea that the family is ‘in crisis’ has long been used to justify arguments for the regulation of sexuality and reproduction in Australia. Specifically, promiscuity, the use of contraceptives, abortion, women’s participation in paid work, their use of paid child care, gay liberation, divorce and later the development of reproductive technologies were all issues which moral conservatives objected to based on the threat such practices posed to ‘the family’ (Gilding 1991 pp. 121-130). Gilding (1991) suggests that these so-called threats were in fact not threats at all, but indications that the family was doing perhaps the only thing it has ever consistently done- changing (pp. 131-32). He contends that ‘there is nothing natural about the family’ (p. 132).
Governmental and legislative defence of marriage and parenthood as being privileged domains accessible only to heterosexuals illustrates the extent to which families are socially constructed. In short, to limit access also limits choice and possibilities. Weeks (1991) argues that unconventional ways of relating always exist beneath the surface of mainstream society. Occasionally, a form will emerge to the surface, becoming more visible and creating a wave of panic in doing so. The usual private presence of these forms become a matter of public concern and new social boundaries are drawn often ‘at the expense of what is unconventional and different’ (p. 134).
Weeks (1991) uses the 1989 case of ‘Clause 28’ in Britain to illustrate this point. Responding, in part, to the attempts of ‘several local authorities’ who had been attempting to promote ‘positive images’ of homosexuality, ‘Clause 28’sought to prohibit the ‘promotion of homosexuality’ and ‘homosexual pretended family relationships’ on the grounds that such forms ‘weakened traditional family values’. Weeks (1991) argues that this response served to reinforce the legitimacy of heterosexuality at the expense of homosexuality. As the lesbian and gay community had grown and ‘posed an implicit challenge to the hegemony of family values,’ it was feared that by ‘promoting homosexuality’ and validating ‘pretend family relationships,’ the more normative traditional family was being placed under attack and thus needed to be protected (pp. 135-140).
Of what value?
I now want to turn to the question of what value marriage may or may not hold for non-heterosexuals. It is important to acknowledge that people cannot be effectively generalised on the basis of their sexual or other status. In other words, it cannot be assumed that all, or even most, non-heterosexual people even want to get married. Indeed, many would balk at the suggestion. Here, I will try to unpack the issues at stake.
‘I can't help feeling that the idea of same-sex marriages conflicts with a fundamental characteristic of being queer. Don't queers pride themselves as being radical, an "other", a tribe that has always stood side by side with subversion?’ (Deveny 2007).
Deveny (2007) completes the above statement by acknowledging that this is not always case as there are multiple ways of being gay, straight and even of being married. Deveny is not arguing that same-sex marriage should be illegal, but that the institution of marriage itself has a dubious history which has included the exclusion of non-heterosexuals. Deveny further argues that it is not likely that same-sex marriage will force marriage as an institution ‘to evolve into a modern, tolerant and less exclusive legalisation and celebration of a union’. Marriage is in any case, she claims, ‘a car up on blocks in the front yard’ with ‘divorce thriving’.
One point of concern amongst many authors is that same-sex marriage may ultimately serve to ‘normalize’ homosexuality, thus creating a situation in which one form of non-heterosexual relationship is more acceptable than others. Richardson (2004) explains that in the 1960’s ‘liberationist attacks on constructions of sexual and gender ‘abnormality’ were not associated with seeking to be ‘normalized’ through incorporation into the dominant culture.
These social movements were highly critical of ‘mainstream society’, and contested many core institutions and cultural values in fundamental ways. A major focus of political action was opposing traditional (heteronormative) definitions of family and gender roles’ (p. 395). She goes on to argue that one of the effects of legalising same-sex marriage ‘would be to make ‘a package’ of lesbian and gay citizenship rights contingent on coupledom status’ (p. 398).
The current state of affairs is such that marriage, as a legally defended heterosexual institution, reinforces what Ingraham refers to as the ‘heterosexual imaginary’. Ingraham argues that ‘the institution of marriage’ and ‘state domestic relations laws’ both work to naturalise the ‘heterosexual imaginary’ by using ‘marriage as the primary requirement for social and economic benefits rather than distributing resources on some other basis, such as citizenship’ (p. 211). In this light, it can be argued that part of the reason that marriage is able to naturalise the ‘heterosexual imaginary’ is due to its current status as a legally defended heterosexual institution. Thus, if marriage were not legally defended as between a man and a woman, the ability for it to reinforce a ‘heterosexual imaginary’ would be progressively weakened.
Both Richardson (2004) and Ingraham (1994) have noted that one of the ways that non-heterosexuals have been adversely affected by the institution of marriage has been due to the fact that those who are married have enjoyed greater social and economic benefits that those who are not married. It would then follow that same-sex marriage would not remedy this disparity entirely.
As I noted above, there is no shortage of non-heterosexuals who have no desire whatsoever to marry. If resources were to continue to be distributed in such a way that privileges one construction of relationship network over another, then attempts to create real alternatives to marriage would face unfair and unnecessary barriers (see Barret & McIntosh 1982). In other words, while I argue that same-sex marriage should be legal, I do not contend that those who marry should attract a privileged status over those who do not. As has been argued by Barret &McIntosh (1982) ‘when we talk of choice, we must mean something more than purely legal freedom; we mean viable possibilities as well’ (p.135).
Weeks (1991) explains how ‘moral communities’ are created through attachments which ‘provide the context of relationships rather than the primary focus’ serving as sites where ‘alternative sources of identification and value are emerging’. Such communities offer the validation of both ‘identity and difference: what we have in common and what divides us’ (p. 154). These communities are highly varied and complex, and ‘in their very existence challenge the idea that there can possibly ever be a single pattern of relationships universally applicable to all’ (p. 155). He argues that the challenge is not really to ‘find alternatives to the family, nor in attempting to make the term family so elastic that it embraces everything, and comes to mean nothing’. Conversely, the real challenge is to create a ‘moral language’ which is able to grasp and articulate ‘the variety of social possibilities that exist in the modern world, to shape a pluralistic set of values which is able to respect difference’. Further, Weeks warns that ‘a true pluralism must begin with the assumption that happiness and personal fulfilment are not the privileged prerogative of family life’ (p. 155).
Conclusion
I have shown that the legal defence of marriage as an exclusively heterosexual institution essentially means that marriage is itself a heterosexist model. The traditional nuclear family model is the idealised model in Australia. Most people grow up in households which are to some extent based on this model. Making marriages legally accessible to non-heterosexuals would progressively weaken the heterosexist elements of marriage and thus of families. This is of particular importance to non-heterosexual youth who, unlike their adult counterparts, have limited access to lesbian and gay communities and are less able to create their own families of choice.
To argue that marriage ought not be legal because it might not be valuable to non-heterosexuals is paternalistic. A better approach would be to remove incentives to marriage to ensure that alternatives are viable and attractive so that individuals are genuinely able to make choices about how they want to ‘be’.
References:
Australian Broadcasting Association (ABC) Online 2008, ‘Govt excludes same-sex marriage from law changes,’ [online] http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/04/30/2230972.htm [accessed] 10 May 2008.
Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) 2007, ‘Australian Social Trends 2007,’ [online] http://www.abs.gov.au/AUSSTATS/abs@.nsf/Latestproducts/F4B15709EC89CB1ECA25732C002079B2?opendocument#HOW%20MANY%20ONE-PARENT%20FAMILIES%3F [accessed] 1 June 2008.
Q&A 22 May 2008, Australian Broadcasting Association (Television).
Barrett, Michele & Mary McIntosh 1982, The Anti-Social Family, Verso, London
Deveny, Catherine 2007, ‘Gay marriage? Why would anyone want to?’ The Age [online] http://www.theage.com.au/news/national/gay-marriage-why-would-anyone-want-to/2007/02/27/1172338619950.html [accessed] 10 May 2008.
Gorman-Murray, Andrew 2008, ‘Queering the family home: narratives from gay, lesbian and bisexual youth coming out in supportive family homes in Australia,’ Gender, Place and Culture, vol. 15 no. 1 pp. 31-44.
Gilding, Michael 1991, The Making and Breaking of the Australian Family, Allen &Unwin, Sydney.
Ingraham, Chrys 1994, ‘The Heterosexual Imaginary: Feminist Sociology and Theories of Gender,’ Sociological Theory Vol. 12 No. 2 pp. 203-219.
Jagose, Annamarie 1996, Queer Theory, Melbourne University Press, Melbourne.
Mayo, Chris 2006, ‘ Pushing the limits of liberalism: queerness, children, and the future,’ Educational Theory, vol. 56 no. 4 pp. 469-487.
Pobjie, Ben 2008, ‘What, Porn and Firecrackers Weren’t Enough?,’ New Matilda [online] http://www.newmatilda.com/2008/05/08/act-gay-marriage [accessed] 10 May 2008.
Richardson, Diane 2004, ‘Locating sexualities: from here to normality,’ Sexualities, vol. 7 no. 4 pp. 391-411.
Schubert, Michelle 2008, ‘Law reforms for gay couples,’ The Age Online [online] http://www.theage.com.au/news/national/reforms-for-gay-couples/2008/04/29/1209234861987.html [accessed] 10 May 2008.
Stacey, Judith, ‘The Families of Man: Gay Male Intimacy and Kinship in a Global Metropolis,’ Signs, vol 30 no 3, 2005, pp. 1911-1935.
Weeks, Jeffrey 1991, Against nature: essays on history, sexuality, and identity, Rivers Oram Press, London.
Weeks, Jeffrey 2000, Making Sexual History, Polity Press, Cambridge.
Weeks, Jeffrey 2001, Same sex intimacies, families of choice and other life experiments, Routledge, London.
Weston, Kath 1993, ‘Families We Choose,’ in The lesbian and gay studies reader eds. Abelove, H., M. Barde & D.M. Halperin, Routledge, New York.
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