The Marrying Kind?

As the fight for same-sex marriage rages across the United States and lesbian and gay couples rush to marriage license counters, the goal of marriage is still fiercely questioned within the LGBT movement. Rarely has an objective so central to a social movement’s political agenda been so controversial within the movement itself. While antigay forces work to restrict marriage to one man and one woman, lesbian and gay activists are passionately arguing about the desirability, viability, and social consequences of same-sex marriage.

The Marrying Kind? is the first book to draw on empirical research to examine these debates and how they are affecting marriage equality campaigns. The essays in this volume analyze the rhetoric, strategies, and makeup of the LGBT social movement organizations pushing for same-sex marriage, and address the dire predictions of some LGBT commentators that same-sex marriage will spell the end of queer identity and community. Case studies from California, Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Oklahoma, Vermont, and Canada illuminate the complicated politics of same-sex marriage, making clear that the current disagreements among LGBT activists over whether marriage is conforming or transformative are far too simplistic. Instead, the impact of the marriage equality movement is complex and often contradictory, neither fully assimilationist nor fully oppositional.

Contributors: Ellen Ann Andersen, U of Vermont; Mary C. Burke, U of Vermont; Adam Isaiah Green, U of Toronto; Melanie Heath, McMaster U, Ontario; Kathleen E. Hull, U of Minnesota; Katrina Kimport, U of California, San Francisco; Jeffrey Kosbie; Katie Oliviero, U of Colorado, Boulder; Kristine A. Olsen; Timothy A. Ortyl; Arlene Stein, Rutgers U; Amy L. Stone, Trinity U; Nella Van Dyke, U of California, Merced.

Mary Bernstein is professor of sociology at the University of Connecticut. She is coeditor of Queer Families, Queer Politics: Challenging Culture and the State and Queer Mobilizations: LGBT Activists Confront the Law.

Contents

Abbreviations

Acknowledgments

Introduction. Marital Discord: Understanding the Contested Place of Marriage in the Lesbian and Gay Movement

Mary Bernstein and Verta Taylor

Part I. Marital Discord

1. What’s the Matter with Newark?: Race, Class, Marriage Politics, and the Limits of Queer Liberalism

Arlene Stein

2. Same-Sex Marriage and Constituent Perceptions of the LGBT Rights Movement

Kathleen E. Hull and Timothy A. Ortyl

3. Beyond Queer vs. LGBT: Discursive Community and Marriage Mobilization in Massachusetts

Jeffrey Kosbie

Part II. Marriage Equality Opposition

4. Winning for LGBT Rights Laws, Losing for Same-Sex Marriage: The LGBT Movement and Campaign Tactics

Amy L. Stone

5. Yes on Proposition 8: The Conservative Opposition to Same-Sex Marriage

Katie Oliviero

Part III. Marriage Activism

6. Mobilization through Marriage: The San Francisco Wedding Protest

Verta Taylor, Katrina Kimport, Nella Van Dyke, and Ellen Ann Andersen

7. The Long Journey to Marriage: Same-Sex Marriage, Assimilation, and Resistance in the Heartland

Melanie Heath

8. Being Seen through Marriage: Lesbian Wedding Photographs and the Troubling of Heteronormativity

Katrina Kimport

Part IV. The Impact of the Marriage Equality Movement

9. Normalization, Queer Discourse, and the Marriage Equality Movement in Vermont

Mary Bernstein and Mary C. Burke

10. What Happens When You Get What You Want?: The Relationship between Organizational Identity and Goals in the Movement for Same-Sex Marriage

Kristine A. Olsen

11. Debating Same-Sex Marriage: Lesbian and Gay Spouses Speak to the Literature

Adam Isaiah Green

Contributors

Index