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Why You Should Give a Damn About Gay Marriage
by Davina Kotulski
Advocate Books
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With the juggernaut of same-sex marriage rolling along, we're faced with a mini-deluge of books that overwhelmingly laud this small revolution in social relations as an enormous change for the better.

No matter what you own feelings about it, same-sex marriage is clearly the movement of the moment. And this moment has become such a publishing moment that two older books are being born again. Beacon Press will be reissuing E.J. Graff's critically acclaimed 1999 What Is Marriage For? The Strange Social History of Our Most Intimate Institution with a new introduction by Village Voice editor-in-chief Richard Goldstein. While not a "same-sex marriage" book per se, Graff's cultural history of the institution has been cited in nearly every legal brief filed in defense of gay marriage. Smart and readable as cultural history, Graff's book may not convince gay people with qualms about marriage to tie the knot, but it's informative and witty.

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Andrew Sullivan's 1997 Gay Marriage: Pro and Con is also being reissued by Random House. A compilation of essays, op-ed pieces, political opinion columns on the topic by those against and for, the Sullivan book offers a good run-through of the basic arguments. While Sullivan is certainly pro-marriage, he presents a wide range of arguments-- including radical gay ones against same-sex marriage.

Meanwhile, Jonathan Rauch's Gay Marriage: Why It Is Good for Gays, Good for Straights, and Good for America has just been published. Rauch is an openly-gay, conservative syndicated columnist noted for distancing himself from the more liberal activist establishment. His basic arguments is that marriage is a basic civil right and that gay marriage will also make everyone behave better, be happier, and contribute to the general good. Rauch is a sunny sort of conservative who-- at least here-- is far less interested in preventing others (well, queers) from entering mainstream social institutions than in expanding those institutions to include everyone.

Perhaps the most interesting gay marriage book to be released so far is Devina Kotulski's Why You Should Give a Damn About Gay Marriage. Kotulski attempts to convince a gay and lesbian readership that traditional marriage is a vital civil-rights issue. And her book isn't bad. She has a witty, snappy style that's engaging and often amusing. The most persuasive part of her argument is that queers get discriminated against by the current marriage laws. Issues such as benefits, taxes, and such important legal rights connected to visiting a loved one in a hospital, being able to make important medical decisions, and co-parenting an adopted or foster child would all (with a few minor exceptions) be remedied by same-sex marriage.

But Kotulski's book begins to flounder when she touches on social or psychological issues. Referring to an unpublished study by the San Francisco Department of Health, men who were registered domestic partners were more like to have safe sex then those who were not. Kotulski then states: "When gay men's relationships are respected by legal status, they are more likely to respect themselves, their domestic partners, and other sexual partners."

It is leaps like this-- so common among those who argue for same-sex marriage-- that may stun the reader. Look at the adultery and divorce rates among heterosexuals-- all of whom of have relationships "respected by legal status." Marriage and monogamy (and respect) are not synonymous, and even if they were there is a far larger discussion to be had here about how integral sexual freedom may be to personal growth.

Later in the book Kotulski argues that one of the best effects of same-sex marriage will be to help poor queers by helping them gain government benefits such as welfare, public housing, and access to health benefits. Well, yes. There are some benefits that poor gay couples might have access to, but it is outrageous that Kotulski doesn't mention that over the past two decades the federal government has been actively-- and recently very energetically-- dismantling all of these programs. If you are in favor of poor people have access to health care and housing fighting for same-sex marriage is an idiotic way of doing it.

These examples show the often hypocritical aspects of the argument for same-sex marriage. Rather than simply focus on inequality under the law, or accept the fact that many gay people really want to enter into matrimonial bonds, advocates insist on presenting same-sex marriage as the leading edge of gay liberation and a cure for all social ills. As succinct and smart as is some of Why You Should Give a Damn, Kotulski can't get around the fact that marriage is essentially a conservative institution that only promotes change in the most limited and limiting ways.

Author Profile:  Michael Bronski
	Michael Bronski is the author of Culture Clash: The Making of Gay Sensibility and The Pleasure Principle: Sex, Backlash, and the Struggle for Gay Freedom. He writes frequently on sex, books, movies, and culture, and lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
	Email:	mabronski@aol.com