Gay Rights — Just like everyone else?
The conversation that we had in class about gay marriage last week has really got me thinking. Does wanting to be “just like everyone else” or asserting that gays and lesbians are “just like everyone else” make a nod towards heteronormativity? I don’t think so.
The ideas that are put forth by saying that gays and lesbians are “just like everyone else,” merely serves to say that the gay and lesbian lifestyle is pretty much identical to the heterosexual lifestyle. We all go to work, do our jobs, come home, go out with friends, pay the bills, have pets, etc. There is very little difference in the lived lives of gays and lesbians in comparison with the lived lives of heterosexuals. In fact, gays and lesbians can be involved in political groups, just like heterosexuals. They can even have the same values. I would argue, and maybe this is just an experiential difference — since I think that I live my life “just like everyone else,” that my existance compared with my heterosexual friends’ existances are pretty much equal.
So why then, does the granting of rights to homosexuals make a nod towards heteronormativity? I’m really confused as to where this idea comes from. My girlfriend argues that we all need to do the same steps — she thinks we should abolish marriage and make everyone go though paperwork to be married. How does that nod towards heteronormativity?
Sex, Gender and Pop Culture 
Michelle said,
March 16, 2007 at 9:58 pm
What your girlfriend is arguing, it seems to me, is not as much a nod toward heteronormativity as areguing for the right to marry. Simply arguing that we should have the same rights as “everyone else” does nothing to question the premises upon which those rights are based. For instance, let’s talk about marriage. Why should we so privilege the couple in this culture? Why do we privilege monogamy? Why do we privilege that elusive theoretical construct we call “the nuclear family”? Remember what you said about Halberstam and the idea that family consumes queers?
What your girlfriend is arguing, it sounds like (as you know, I haven’t talked to her about this, so I am going on what you say), is that we shoudl rethink marriage. This, I believe, is not the same as arguing that we should just maintain the institution and work to be able to participate in it. I don’t believe in the institution. I believe we should be challenging the institutions that have consumed us, not work to participate in them.