In the context of recent oral arguments before the Supreme Court, students taking “Sex and the City” discussed the marriage equality in the context of a course that addresses some of the more radical implications of queer politics and practice. Claire Potter at the New School provides some thoughts on that subject that students may find intriguing. Here’s her conclusion:
The radical queer critique of marriage emerges from this history: under current conditions, gay and lesbian people who marry signal a commitment to things as they are, not as they could be. But this does not have to be the case: just as marriage should not require the marginalization of the unmarried, movements for economic justice do not have to occur in a world where no one at all marries. Marriage is not a radical act, and ought not to be spoken of as one — but radical people sometimes marry. Regardless of what the court decides, the agenda must be to continue the critique of marriage as an institution, scrutinize the improper power relations that marriage nurtures. But asking millions of people, rich and poor, to accept a set of discriminatory and humiliating legal exclusions until the revolution comes, laws that hurt them economically and repeatedly articulate them as second class citizens, does not necessarily move a social justice agenda forward either.