Queer Tensions: The Cultural Politics of Belonging and Exclusion in Same Gender Marriage Debates
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Advocates for same gender marriage tend to focus on the rights and benefits associated with state sanctioned unions. This strategy eclipses the cultural roots of marriage, thus it does not provide an adequate account for the resistance against same gender marriage. Nor can it explain the paradoxical desire among lesbians and gay men to participate in a social institution that has been the subject of derision and critique among feminist scholars and queer activists. In this article, I explore the cultural bases of marriage in the United States and the rhetoric in anti-marriage arguments in order to demonstrate the underlying cultural myths that contribute to both the desire to preserve traditional marriage and the desire among lesbians and gay men to participate. This interpretation reveals several tensions (both cultural and psychological) underlying the “marriage wars.” These tensions may be one of the best indicators of both the meaning and stability of marriage as a social institution.