The legal recognition of same-sex marriages is well on its way to political reality in Canada. The growing frenzy around the issue has left me increasingly uncomfortable. The tipping point came recently, when I was drafted into a press conference organized by student governments supporting the Campaign for Equal Marriage.
I found myself awkwardly standing in solidarity with straight allies campaigning for a cause I can’t fully support. Like many queers, I think adding gays and lesbians to current marriage laws isn’t good enough, that this solution ignores the rich diversity of our relationships-this could have been an opportunity to create something better. But I didn’t feel free to say that. No one wants to give accidental support to the homophobes, and voicing my concerns could have benefited them by confusing our message. I just wish queers on campus had been asked what they wanted that message to be.
For years, queer activists have had trouble getting people to engage with issues we feel are important. Now, they are holding press conferences about gay and lesbian rights. One thing hasn’t changed-they’re still not listening to us. Our straight allies have not only jumped on the marriage bandwagon, they seem to be grabbing for the reins as well. It’s not clear why this issue has suddenly become a student government priority. Where were the press conferences years ago, before same-sex marriage had become a virtual inevitability?
Despite LGBTOUT’s long history of queer activism at U of T, they were given less than 48 hours notice of the press conference, and initially weren’t even offered a position on the speakers list. It is troubling that the only queer issues that capture the attention of our straight allies are those in which queers pursue the goal of assimilation.
If SAC had taken the time to talk to queer students on campus, they might have been surprised. Relatively few see marriage as an issue of great importance. Many would prefer to see the institution drastically restructured, rather than just expanded slightly. Marriage is fundamentally unequal. It systematically privileges certain relationships with governmental validation and rewards. In doing so, it implicitly supports the notion that some relationships are better than others. Expanding marriage to include same-sex couples shares that privilege with some, but leaves others behind.
Government should remove itself from the marriage business altogether. The civil system should recognize that relationships are broader than a husband, a wife, and 2.3 children, and that all members of a family unit, however they define themselves, deserve protection. A system of registered domestic partnerships could provide rights and protection without reference to gender or conjugality.
These views are not new. In 1999, academic and activist Michael Warner wrote a book (The Trouble with Normal) that challenged queers to question the desirability of same-sex marriage and government-issue legitimacy. The idea that marriages should be replaced by flexible domestic partnership agreements has long been promoted by groups like the Coalition for Lesbian & Gay Rights in Ontario (CLGRO). The Law Commission of Canada agreed, in their 2002 report entitled “Beyond Conjugality.” Yet our student governments are apparently unaware of these nuances and deeper issues. Straight allies may be more comfortable with the idea of sharing the privilege they enjoy, rather than face the prospect of losing it entirely.
Regardless of their motives, they are apparently content enough with the simplistic formulation “equal marriage = good” that they feel free to speak on behalf of queers without bothering to consult us. They know what is good for us, and that, apparently, is marriage as they know it.
Paul Bowser is a graduate student at U of T and former coordinator of LGBTOUT.
