Scan barcode
amber_lea84's review
3.0
I feel like the writers in this book misunderstand a lot. There's this common "either/or" argument running throughout all these essays that if you're for gay marriage you're against everything else worth fighting for...and therefore you're a classist, racist, transphobic a-hole. I think you can be for gay marriage and still give a shit about poor people and poly people and people of color and genderqueers and everyone else.
And let me clarify that I have no intention to ever get married and I have many issues with the institution of marriage, but I think gay marriage is a good thing because it will help SOME people for NOW which is better than helping nobody until you can help everybody.
This was tacked onto the end of the last essay as an afterthought a few years after the original essay was written, and I thought it was perfect: "We know that for many people, marriage, and the benefits it can give, can be a form of survival. We believe that people can experience an immediate need for the benefits marriage would provide and a simultaneous hope for more expansive solutions."
That right there is enough reason to not fight against gay marriage.
And let me clarify that I have no intention to ever get married and I have many issues with the institution of marriage, but I think gay marriage is a good thing because it will help SOME people for NOW which is better than helping nobody until you can help everybody.
This was tacked onto the end of the last essay as an afterthought a few years after the original essay was written, and I thought it was perfect: "We know that for many people, marriage, and the benefits it can give, can be a form of survival. We believe that people can experience an immediate need for the benefits marriage would provide and a simultaneous hope for more expansive solutions."
That right there is enough reason to not fight against gay marriage.
reasonpassion's review
5.0
I actually didn't read this for a while simply because I knew my easy view of gay rights and the social change involved with it would be challenged. Once I started though, I couldn't stop. While at times amusing, particularly when reading an article that declares the push to legalize marriage equality is failing (it was written before the string of victories), the overall message is one of expanding a view of social justice and community involvement beyond isolated projects. This expansion means calling into question the institution of marriage itself and noting how it is both a conservative goal to achieve so-called equality of a traditional relationship dynamic but decidedly problematic to focus on government providing legitimacy to relationships that should be accepted on their own. None of this is to deny the work of the gay-rights activists. Rather, it is to remind people that the war on sexuality, which is essentially what the anti-gay is about, is the core issue and being so focused on derivative problems helps keep the underlying problem alive and well.
gvenezia's review
4.0
A decent introduction to the shortcomings of the marriage equality movement. However, the first few essays seemed to raise many of the same concerns with little support or explication.
——MJ Kaufman and Katie Miles——
"…the consequences of the fight for legal inclusion [of same-sex couples] in the marriage structure are terrifying. We're seeing queer communities fractured as one model of family is being hailed and accepted as the norm, and we are seeing queer families and communities ignore and effectively work against groups who we see as natural allies, such as immigrant families, poor families, and families suffering from booming incarceration rates. We reject the idea that any relationship based on love should have to register with the state. Marriage is an institution used primarily to consolidate privilege, and we think real change will only come from getting rid of a system that continually doles out privilege to a few more, rather than trying to reform it"
"We would like to see a queer community that, rather than appropriating the narrative of the civil rights movement for its marriage equality campaign, takes an active role in exposing and protesting structural inequality and structural racism"
——Yasmin Nair——
"I don't get why a community of people who have historically been fucked over by their families and the state now consists of people who want those exact same institutions to validate their existence. I think marriage is the gay Prozac, the drug of choice for gaysbians today: It makes them forget that marriage isn't going to give everyone health care, it won't give us a subsistence wage, it won't end all these fucked up wars that are killing people everywhere else."
——Hilary Goldberg——
"Why don't Madonna and Angelina, in their gay wisdom, adopt some adult queer artists and activists instead? For a fraction of what they spend on a handful of appropriated transnational youths, they could adopt queer artists en masse, and foster a global queer trust fund for the movement."
——Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore——
"hate crime legislation does nothing but put more money, energy, and resources into the hands of the notoriously racist, classist, misogynist, homophobic, and transphobic criminal so-called "justice" system."
"…the fight against anti-gay Proposition 8 in California…cost more than any other ballot measure in California history! Those maniacal marriage organizations spent $40 million on that shit—can you imagine what we would have if they took that $40 million and fought for single payer universal health care, or built an enormous queer youth shelter in San Francisco or Sacramento, Fresno, or San Diego? With the leftovers, we could create a collectively run, all-ages, 24-hour sex club with free vegan food, knock-you down music of all types, free massage, acupuncture, and health care for all needs, as well as a special area for training people in squatting and neighborhood redecoration projects."
——MJ Kaufman and Katie Miles——
"…the consequences of the fight for legal inclusion [of same-sex couples] in the marriage structure are terrifying. We're seeing queer communities fractured as one model of family is being hailed and accepted as the norm, and we are seeing queer families and communities ignore and effectively work against groups who we see as natural allies, such as immigrant families, poor families, and families suffering from booming incarceration rates. We reject the idea that any relationship based on love should have to register with the state. Marriage is an institution used primarily to consolidate privilege, and we think real change will only come from getting rid of a system that continually doles out privilege to a few more, rather than trying to reform it"
"We would like to see a queer community that, rather than appropriating the narrative of the civil rights movement for its marriage equality campaign, takes an active role in exposing and protesting structural inequality and structural racism"
——Yasmin Nair——
"I don't get why a community of people who have historically been fucked over by their families and the state now consists of people who want those exact same institutions to validate their existence. I think marriage is the gay Prozac, the drug of choice for gaysbians today: It makes them forget that marriage isn't going to give everyone health care, it won't give us a subsistence wage, it won't end all these fucked up wars that are killing people everywhere else."
——Hilary Goldberg——
"Why don't Madonna and Angelina, in their gay wisdom, adopt some adult queer artists and activists instead? For a fraction of what they spend on a handful of appropriated transnational youths, they could adopt queer artists en masse, and foster a global queer trust fund for the movement."
——Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore——
"hate crime legislation does nothing but put more money, energy, and resources into the hands of the notoriously racist, classist, misogynist, homophobic, and transphobic criminal so-called "justice" system."
"…the fight against anti-gay Proposition 8 in California…cost more than any other ballot measure in California history! Those maniacal marriage organizations spent $40 million on that shit—can you imagine what we would have if they took that $40 million and fought for single payer universal health care, or built an enormous queer youth shelter in San Francisco or Sacramento, Fresno, or San Diego? With the leftovers, we could create a collectively run, all-ages, 24-hour sex club with free vegan food, knock-you down music of all types, free massage, acupuncture, and health care for all needs, as well as a special area for training people in squatting and neighborhood redecoration projects."
lsmith36's review
4.0
I liked the arguments here. It was accessible considering that most were blog posts, so it's a nice social discussion without having to slog through difficult language.
clear82's review
2.0
Two stars = it was okay.
The essays within range in quality to an astonishing degree and push this from 3.5-ish to 2 stars. Several essays are poorly reasoned but have some excellent thoughts; two essays are very well executed and deserve your thoughtful attention.
The idea behind this volume is great. There aren't enough voices involved in setting the national agenda and there are some decent arguments to be made for why gay marriage shouldn't be a part of that agenda at all or that it should be a part of a more total change in the way we're doing business. I'm not sure this small collection is worthy of its charge, but it is definitely to be commended for being out there in print where there's otherwise mostly silence on this question.
The essays within range in quality to an astonishing degree and push this from 3.5-ish to 2 stars. Several essays are poorly reasoned but have some excellent thoughts; two essays are very well executed and deserve your thoughtful attention.
The idea behind this volume is great. There aren't enough voices involved in setting the national agenda and there are some decent arguments to be made for why gay marriage shouldn't be a part of that agenda at all or that it should be a part of a more total change in the way we're doing business. I'm not sure this small collection is worthy of its charge, but it is definitely to be commended for being out there in print where there's otherwise mostly silence on this question.
iimpavid's review
5.0
1) much shorter book than i thought i was getting
2) not at all short on quality critique of the "marriage equality" movement
This makes a whole lot of points that I've been mulling over re: corporate pride and queer politics. Namely that most of the United States (read: the ppl in the US with power) is content to give the poor little queers scraps as long as it'll shut us up. In hindsight this book makes me ask questions: what good, exactly, has winning the right to marry done for lgbtq communities as a whole? are we safer? are we dying less? are few of us suffering in poverty? do more of us have insurance and job security? what has marriage equality on its own done to gain lgbtq people equal protection under the law? marriage equality seems to have been something of a pacifier.
3)i wish i'd read it 10 years ago when it was first released
2) not at all short on quality critique of the "marriage equality" movement
This makes a whole lot of points that I've been mulling over re: corporate pride and queer politics. Namely that most of the United States (read: the ppl in the US with power) is content to give the poor little queers scraps as long as it'll shut us up. In hindsight this book makes me ask questions: what good, exactly, has winning the right to marry done for lgbtq communities as a whole? are we safer? are we dying less? are few of us suffering in poverty? do more of us have insurance and job security? what has marriage equality on its own done to gain lgbtq people equal protection under the law? marriage equality seems to have been something of a pacifier.
3)i wish i'd read it 10 years ago when it was first released
corpuslibris's review
3.0
Some great essays, and some blog posts I could have done without. Though I didn't agree with every argument, I agreed with many of them. And this little volume definitely offered some food for thought.
glindquist's review
2.0
Some of the essays resonated with me more than others, but all raised interesting critiques that I hadn't thought of before about the marriage equality movement, gays serving in the military, and hate crime classifications. It could be hard to get past the way the tone of the writing could often make the reader feel attacked, but writers shouldn't have to pander to readers' sensitivity to get their point across, so I tried to be objective and stick with it.
piquareste's review
4.0
For someone new to radical queer theory, this was paradigm-shifting. Still trying to reorganise the ideas from some of the writers’ more passionate and angry standpoints into something I can connect to better, but some of the arguments were rationally insightful and compelling.
More...