I Don’t Want Marriage, I Want Equity

Tracy Kronzak

I Don’t Want Marriage, I Want Equity

The scene right now in San Francisco.photo credit: Steve Rhodes

There is nothing equitable about marriage, same-sex or otherwise. Equal, for sure, but equitable – no way.

Sure I’m disappointed about today’s ruling from the CA Supreme Court. Because what this really means is that even though marriage is at heart an inequitable institution, it has been framed by many as a fundamental right. Therefore, what disappoints me most is that the anything-goes-if-you’ve-got-a-few-million-dollars-and-a-right-wing-agenda California Proposition system (and I know this isn’t how it was supposed to be) has lost an opportunity for checks and balances. The slimmest of majorities now have greater legal precedent to take away rights, however they are defined, from a minority in California: queers, people of color, women, people with disabilities and so on.

But let’s not fool ourselves. Marriage equality is simply that – equal access to a set of rights and privileges that are otherwise unavailable to unmarried folks. Back in the day, when I was part of a group of folks fighting for housing and employment anti-discrimination laws for the LGBT communities, the right wing coined the term “Special Rights”: giving people legal protection just because of whom they are sleeping with. I posit that marriage is the ultimate Special Right. It gives privileges, rights and protections (1100 and counting) to people based on whom they are sleeping with.

So for me, while marriage equality is a nice idea, what I really want is equity. I want the Special Right of marriage completely eradicated, and the access to all of the legal privileges associated with it made available to everyone regardless of marital status. If you’re shaking your head right now saying that will never happen, think back to the early 1990s when everyone was saying that the whole notion of same-sex marriage was a pipe dream.

Eliminating the legal rights and privileges associated with marriage actually gives us an amazing opportunity to build bridges between the LGBT communities and many others working for equity and justice. It gets us out of our “me-too” mentality when it comes to marriage and broadens the Queer community’s perspective to a “we-too” framework – just the thing we didn’t do when opposing Prop 8 last year. I hope that in this moment, the assembled Queer community sees this point as well.

Posted at 11:55 AM, May 26, 2009 in Featured | LGBT | Permalink | View Comments

Comments

Terrific piece! Thanks for voicing so eloquently how many of us feel.

Tracy,
Glad to see a shared perspective.

Yes to "the Special Right of marriage completely eradicated, and the access to all of the legal privileges associated with it made available to everyone regardless of marital status."

As you know, I've written a longer piece on bilerico, suggesting that we dump marriage now (thanks for dropping by):

Prop 8 is a Distraction, or: NOW can we Dump Gay Marriage as a Cause?

http://tinyurl.com/qenzmt

Eliminating a legal tool for defining a familial relationship between adults and spreading out the rights associated with said familial and specific relationship? One that half the households in the US operate within?
No. We'll see polygamous universal civil unions before that dumb idea comes to pass.

@ Bob - I think you made my point for me. There's no reason why only "half of the households" in the US should benefit from the legal privileges associated with a marriage contract. And there are many kinds of familial relationships between adults - parents and children, brothers and sisters, caretakers - not just the narrowly-defined, "I'm sleeping with this person" as sanctioned by marriage.

Get married if you want - no-one is stopping you. But there should be no legal, policy, care-taking, beneficiary or fiscal benefits associated with your marriage that I cannot access without being married and via alternative means - whether it be designating an insurance beneficiary, declaring who has the ability to make medical decisions for me, inheriting my SSDI payments upon death, and all of the other perks that are connected with marriage in the legal and political realms.

By eliminating the Special Rights associated with marriage, we eliminate the urgency of the same-sex marriage movement while simultaneously achieving greater equity for more people - for example, single mothers, elders caring for each other, people with chronic health problems in need of insurance. I'm entitled to pay for or add my marital spouse to my employer health insurance, if I'm not married why am I not entitled to add a lifelong friend in need of medical care in place of a spouse? If I don't have a spouse to designate as the beneficiary of my Social Security death benefits, why can't I designate my elderly mother or a sibling? These are the kinds of artificial obstacles marriage creates.