Transforming Marriage
Houston Voice Blog
by Erwin de Leon
October 22, 2009

“I don’t know about this marriage business,” Dick Leitsch muttered half-jokingly. “I don’t feel so special anymore.” The former Mattachine chief and Stonewall activist was expressing a concern some in our community have about how marriage is beginning to change us - how we are losing our edge and identity, and becoming “heteronormative.” How we are selling out.

Actor Rupert Everett was far less gracious. “Marriage? Babies? Please. I want to be illegal. I want to live outside the mainstream … These awful middle-class queens - which is what the gay movement has become - are so tiresome.”

The fact of the matter is, whether opponents of equality and some of us don’t like it, lesbians and gays are getting married and the time will come when all Americans can marry if they so choose. But how the act and institution will change us is an interesting question.

In her recently published book, "When Gay People Get Married: What Happens When Societies Legalize Same-Sex Marriage," economist and LGBT researcher M.V. Lee Badgett asks, “Will marriage change gay people?”

She writes that “Some hope so, arguing that gay men will be more monogamous and gay relationships more stable if same-sex couples can marry, and gays and lesbians will be better assimilated into the larger culture. Opponents of marriage equality believe that gay and lesbian people will not be able to gain from marriage, though. Others in the gay, lesbian, and bisexual communities fear that distinctive features of gay life will be transformed in negative ways.”

At a book reading last week, she added that there are those who fear that the relationships of lesbians and gays who opt to stay in domestic partnerships or in alternative arrangements (such as polyamory) will be deemed inferior to those of married couples.

Notwithstanding, those of us who choose to marry will gain the stability and security that come from the over 1,100 federal privileges and protections different-sex couples enjoy and will feel that our families are just as valid and valued like any other.

A study by the Williams Institute, also coauthored by Badgett, finds that as a result of being able to marry in Massachusetts, individuals feel more committed to their partners and more accepted by their families and communities and are more likely to be out. Nearly 90 percent of those surveyed reported that all or most of their family members supported their marriage.

Our children will likewise be better off if we were to wed. Nearly all of the survey respondents claimed that their children are happier. Many said their children felt more secure and protected, having gained a sense of stability and seeing their families validated by society. Only 5 percent admitted to their children being teased as a result of their marriages.

Patrick James argues in GOOD Magazine that often lost in the debate over marriage equality is the beneficial effects on children. He maintains that “in a world that celebrates the institution, the perceptive distance between being gay and virtuous collapses, and a young person can look forward to a life of commitment, father or motherhood, and inclusion in the shared experience that binds us as a people.”

The sense of stability and security we and our families will feel upon winning the right of marriage becomes crucial as we age. In researching lesbian and gay baby boomers, Brian deVries, a professor of gerontology, discovered that those who live in states that do not legally recognize same-sex couples are more likely to have prepared for the end of life by completing such documents as living wills than those who live in states that do recognize their relationships. At the same time, these folks are more likely to have greater fears and anxieties about end of life and later life issues.

Dr. deVries explains, "The bottom line is that those who reside in states that do not recognize relationships or sanctioned marriages between same-sex couples feel less cared for and less cared about and must take extra legal steps to prepare for their later years. The absence of recognition of same-sex relationships conveys a sense of second-class citizenship and a stress associated with such unwelcome status."

Perhaps it’s not too bad after all to no longer feel so special. In “selling out,” we stand to gain a whole lot more. Equality, for one.