Jay, too, links to my recent marriage post. I appreciate his link and savor a dig at the theocrats any time I see one. I just want to clarify something, though. He summarizes my argument as,
In other words, domesticated marriage life has made gay culture more boring.
The thing is, though, not all that many gay folks are married in Massachusetts. And judging from the particular couples I’ve known to tie the knot, I don’t think legal marriage itself has changed their lives all that much. What has changed people’s lives- and made gay culture more boring - is the widespread psychic investment that lots of gay people have in the idea that very soon we will be treated like everyone else and integrated seemlessly into the fabric of society. The ideology of marriage leads to a mainstreaming mentality that may in fact get ahead of the actual mainstreaming of gays and lesbians.
Not that this changes Jay’s point. But from the viewpoint of those who dedicated to the welfare of gay people as equal citizens and members of this society it matters whether the marriage rights crowd and the gay assimilationists (not one in the same, but related) are right in their assessment that we are on the cusp of acceptance or if the left-leaning critics are right that the mainstreaming mentality is delusional. I differ from friends both more assimilationist and anti-assimilationist by thinking that the evidence points to the truth lying in the middle. We are making progress at an astonishing pace - progress which might eventually make a lot of gay culture and institutions unnecessary - yet it’s too early to chuck gay collectivity - political and cultural - out the window.
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