Marriage and the Homosexual Body: It's About Race

Abstract

Any analogy between race and homosexuality cannot erase the fact that skin color has marked and continues to mark bodies for special punishment and necessary protection. Yet, the analogy has also been forged in the struggles against sexual discrimination and in the courts to recognize same-sex marriage as a basic civil right. My purposes here are, first, to review the role the race-sexual orientation analogy has played in same-sex marriage debates, second to examine the analogy within the context of race and queer theories and, finally, to suggest a racial dimension to sexuality that marks the homosexual body.

Keywords:

• same-sex marriage
• homosexuality
• race

Notes

An earlier, shorter version of this article was presented on March 25, 2011 at the Wisconsin Women's Studies and LGBTQ Conference in Madison, Wisconsin.

1. Frank Kameny died on October 11, 2011, at age eighty-six, on National Coming Out Day. He was recognized as a visionary activist for gay rights and recognition.

2. In 1973, the American Psychiatric Association voted to remove homosexuality from the DSM classification as a mental disorder (APA, 1973).

3. As of 2004, 30% of Americans still disapproved of interracial marriage (Sullivan, 2004).

4. Other theologians argue that religious intolerance of homosexuality is prejudicial. Episcopalian Bishop Shelby Spong has long called for the “church to admit publicly its own complicity in their oppression [of homosexuals] based on its vast ignorance and prejudice. It is time to overcome that dark chapter in church history …” (Sullivan, 2004, p. 68). Rabbi Yoel Kahn has written, “I believe that God summons us to affirm the proper and rightful place of the homosexual Jew … I do not propose merely that we politely overlook the historical Jewish teaching condemning homosexual behavior but that we explicitly affirm its opposite” (Sullivan, 2004, p. 75).

5. Although Sullivan's (2004) look at the relatively few studies of children with same-sex parents finds no appreciable difference with children of heterosexual parents, some studies suggest advantages for children of same-sex parents: see “Not in Front of the Children: Same-Sex Marriage and Parenthood” (Sullivan, 2004, pp. 239–272). One study, for example, showed that daughters of lesbian mothers are less confined by gender roles and gendered professional aspirations than daughters of heterosexual parents. Another study showed that gay male parents are more attentive to parenting than hetero fathers. No legitimate study finds any negative consequences for children in same-sex parent homes as compared to children in heterosexual parent homes.

6. In her preface to From Disgust to Humanity, Nussbaum (2010) discusses the problem of internalized inferiority among gays and lesbians.

7. Johnson (2009) quotes Professor David Coolidge, a prominent opponent of same-sex marriage.

8. I am grateful to Shelley Gregory, attorney, San Francisco, CA, for helping me to interpret the complexities of this case. Caz McChrystal, Assistant Professor of Business, University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point, and Kate Manian-McChrystal, Gagne and O'Halloran, also graciously provided their expertise.

9. The vote for California's Proposition 8 was 52.3% in favor, with 47.7% against, according to the League of Women Voters.

10. It is worth noting that the court declined to apply Proposition 8 retrospectively to the 18,000 same-sex marriages that occurred in California subsequent to In re Marriage Cases (2008), leaving those marriages intact and entitled to legal recognition in California.

11. Eng (2007) points out that the initial police intrusion on the mixed-race couple, John Geddes Lawrence and Tyron Garner, was precipitated by a weapons disturbance report by a “jilted third party,” who called the Harris County police dispatcher with the following words, “There's a nigger going crazy with a gun,“ material facts “largely ignored by Lawrence commentators” (p. 47).

12. According to a recent poll (Newport, May 2011), for the first time a small majority of Americans support same-sex marriage. The poll notes however that the “issue remains divisive,” with only 4 in 10 Republicans and older Americans in support (p. 3). Still, the fact that the greatest shift toward support has occurred in 18–34 year olds and men under 50 suggests a sea change in public opinion (“For the first time,” 2011, pp. 2–3).

13. In The New Yorker (2010), Talbot writes about two cases regarding same-sex marriage that may be heard by the U. S. Supreme Court, Perry v. Schwarzenegger (now Perry v. Brown), which challenges the constitutionality of California's Proposition 8 under the U.S. (rather than California) Constitution, and Gill v. Office of Personnel Management, which challenges the definition of marriage as between one man and one woman, found in a section of the Defense of Marriage Act, which denies same-sex couples federal benefits associated with marriage. Talbot provides a thoughtful analysis of the social and legal climate that might make the cases risky strategies in the struggle for equal marriage rights. (2012), the federal court challenge to Proposition 8, the appeals court most recently held that Proposition 8’s classification of lesbians and gay men as undeserving of entering the state-sanctioned and state-designated institution of marriage cannot survive under the federal constitution, even subjecting the provision to the least rigorous level of judicial review, which requires only some rational basis for the distinction. Declining to address the broader issue of the fundamental right of same-sex couples to marry under the federal constitution, the Perry v. Brown opinion instead observes that “California had already extended to committed same-sex couples both the incidents of marriage and the official designation of ‘marriage,’ and Proposition 8’s only effect was to take away that important and legally significant designation, while leaving in place all of its incidents” (p. 1). Stripping away the right legally to use the designation “marriage,” the court found, is inherently unjustifiable because California law continues to provide same-sex couples in state-registered domestic partnerships the same rights and responsibilities as married couples. To deprive same-sex couples only of the symbol of “state legitimization and social recognition of their committed relationships” is to “lessen the status and human dignity of gays and lesbians in California, and to officially reclassify their relationships and families as inferior to those of the opposite-sex couples” (p. 1).

14. On March 1, 2012, Maryland became the eighth state (pending the governor's signature at the time of this writing), in addition to Washington DC, to explicitly permit same-sex marriage, along with Connecticut, Iowa, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New York, Vermont, and Washington. As of this writing, Maryland's governor is expected to sign similar legislation imminently.

15. Edie Windsor and Thea Spyer spent 44 years together and married in Canada in 2007. Two years later, Thea died from complications of multiple sclerosis, having suffered for years with progressive paralysis. Because under DOMA the federal government did not recognize their marriage, Edie Windsor had to pay $360,000 in federal estate tax “that otherwise would have been $0” had she been married to a man (American Civil Liberties Union, 2011, p. 2).