The following post is something I’ve wanted to say for some time. My decision to say it now is not due to any particular event, and I am not directing it at any particular person, and I write it with all due respect.

It seems to me that the recent agitation for and against state sanctioned marriages between gay couples has obscured a valuable conversation about the function of marriage more generally. What’s more, it obscures valuable work being done by glbt/queer folk to re-invent the meaning of kinship. The reason that I do not agitate for gay marriage is because I find the legalistic and social functions of marriage to be antithetical to this queer project. In other words, I do not believe that queer culture and marriage can co-exist in some sort of mutually tolerant arrangement. I also do not believe that openminded and well-intentioned people will change the function of marriage “from the inside.” This does not mean that I think married people are nefarious, or that people who want to get married are chumps. I appreciate how difficult it is for any of us to get by in the world and get a little validation and security, and find a little meaning. My motivation for writing this is not to draw lines or to separate the men from the fags, but only to make visible a persistent tension in my life. On the one hand, I wish to support all my friends in however they choose to arrange their families. On the other, I wish to construct novel, durable, and sustainable forms of kinship, and frankly this means dismantling conventional forms.

And here maybe you’ll ask: Why does it have to be either/or? Aren’t people symbolically building all manner of family all the time? Don’t individuals decide for themselves who their family is anyway? And why do others have to be different for you to do what you want?

The problem I have with these arguments is that they grossly underestimate the influence of legal and social structures on individual behavior. Such arguments pressume those structures to be some how optional, and individual decisions to be some how independent of such influence. Most distressingly, I find that those who make these arguments often present themselves as disinvested from such structures, as if their own seemingly private, abstruse reasons for wanting to get married stand apart from the usual rationales.

It is precisely that fashioning of marriage as a personal, private decision that most bothers me. If it was private, than you would not need to announce your marriage, or have a wedding, and you most certainly would not need me to attend. The only thing private about marriage is the privilege of doing it at all, which is to say it is exclusive by its very definition and intended to grant legitimacy to some relationships at the expense of others. And the point at which a marriage is so private it’s a secret, then it no longer counts. The same is true for kinship in general: it doesn’t count if no else can see it, or if no one else recognizes it. This invisibility was the problem some queer folks hoped to address by calling for gay marriage. But I’m not interested in making gay people more like straight people; I’m interested in dismantling heteronormativity, and that means making visible, and available, alternative forms of kinship. There are myriad ways in which to make that happen, so to be clear, I’m not arguing that discrimination prevents me from creating a family. I’m saying I see people choosing conventional forms of kinship rather than making use of those other options.

So, what to do? Boycott all weddings? It would save me money, but it also means I don’t get to be a part of an important event in my friends’ lives, and that only further dispossesses me of any legitimate community ties. It seems the best thing to do is to have my say so at least I don’t just wander around the reception grumbling to myself. I will, however, take this opportunity to make the following announcement: All future wedding presents from me will be in the form of a donation to organizations working to secure legal options for gay people who wish to adopt children, retirement communities for glbt folks, and domestic partnership benefits (broadly defined).