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Same-Sex Unions and the Spectacles of Recognition

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Same-Sex Marriage and the Constitution. Gerstmann Evan, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004. xii+222 pp. $60.00 cloth; $21.99 paper.
The Limits to Union: Same-Sex Marriage and the Politics of Civil Rights. Goldberg-Hiller Jonathan, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2002. x+290 pp. $60.00 cloth.
Equality for Same-Sex Couples: The Legal Recognition of Gay Partnerships in Europe and the United States. Merin Yuval, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2002. xvi+397 pp. $66.00 cloth; $25.00 paper.

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2024

Joe Rollins
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Extract

The boundary between homo- and heterosexuality once stood solidly in our cultural imagination, marked off by a set of assumed differences that were purportedly made manifest in real, material ways. Gays and lesbians, so the story went, were verifiably different from straight people, but gradually, the perceived boundary between the two sexualities has eroded. It has been 30 years since the American Psychological Association cured us of our homosexuality with the stroke of a pen. Despite the enthusiastic application of scientific and statistical technologies, the efforts of researchers such as Dean Hamer, Peter Copeland, and Simon LeVay (just to name a few), have failed to show conclusively that our ears, fingers, brains, or genes actually reveal anything concrete about our choices of sexual partners. Lawrence v. Texas (2003) has knocked down Bowers v. Hardwick (1986) as well as the remaining sodomy laws, expanded the right of privacy to include same-sex sex, and in the wake of Goodridge v. Dept. of Public Health (2003) Massachusetts has begun allowing same-sex couples to marry. In contrast to many European nations, gay and lesbian parents in the United States are winning legal victories with increasing frequency, gaining greater access to adoption and child custody despite jurisdictional variation. For that diminishing segment of the population that still desperately wants a clear marker of its sexual superiority the news is not good. Fortunately for them, heterosexuals still have one clearly identifiable social sanctuary where they can remind themselves that they have something that non-heterosexuals do not: marriage. With a minimum of effort and expense, one man and one woman can enter into a relationship with the state that brings about numerous legal benefits, obligations, and privileges. Despite some advances, marriage thus stands as one of the last clearly exclusive, forcefully bounded, brightly illuminated enclaves where gays and lesbians may not tread; it remains for heterosexuals only (or at least, for those who want to appear that way).

Type
Review Essay
Information
Law & Society Review , Volume 39 , Issue 2 , June 2005 , pp. 457 - 483
Copyright
© 2005 Law and Society Association.

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Footnotes

I would like to thank the following people for their helpful comments on earlier drafts of this essay: Alyson Cole, Ziva Flamhaft, Andrew Hacker, Peter Hegarty, Parviez Hosseini, and Victoria Pitts. I am especially grateful to Martha Merrill Umphrey for her insights and commentary. The research for this project has been supported in part by a grant from the Wayne F. Placek Foundation.

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