The abstract:
Post-Lawrence efforts to secure marriage equality for same sex couples must be undertaken, at a minimum, in a way that is compatible with efforts to dislodge marriage from its normatively superior status as compared with other forms of human attachment, commitment and desire. Resisting the normative and epistemic frame that values non-marital forms of life in direct proportion to their similarity to marriage, we must unseat marriage as the measure of all things. To this end, I ‘ll suggest a thought experiment: substituting friendship for marriage at the center of the social field in which human connection takes place. No longer the sun around which all other relationships and relations orbit, our investments in marriage and marriage ‘s investments in us are likely to yield in such a way that we can imagine making the argument for same sex couples ‘ right to marry while imagining and cultivating different longings than that for Loving.
Well yea for Katherine Franke. She has said so eloquently something that I’ve been trying to work out for myself over many years. It can be problemmatic for a straight woman to speak about misgivings with respect to movements demanding marriage for same-sex couples. Yes, I believe that gay and lesbian people should have the choice to legally marry or not. But I can’t get on board with the movement in a wholehearted way, committed as I am to transcending that most patriarchal of all institutions. Franke seems to map a way through that complex maze and out the other side. Likely I would construct the argument somewhat differently, but all voices are welcome and this one makes a substantive contribution to the conversation. How to work for both at the same time though? In a CONCRETE way, how? I’ll read, and think, on.