ABSTRACT

In the summer of 2006, a group of LGBT scholars and activists in the U.S. issued a statement calling on the LGBT movement in the U.S. to move “beyond marriage.” This statement, signed by scholarly luminaries such as Wendy Brown, Judith Butler, Lisa Duggan, John D’Emilio, and Jonathan Katz, among others, as well as by activists from some grassroots queer organizations, argued for an alternative vision of the role of the state in relationship recognition and called attention to a broad “profamily” policy agenda that encompasses not only same-sex marriage but also abortion, contraception, the active promotion of heterosexual marriage, the moral regulation of single mothers, and attacks on the welfare state. The statement argued that the pursuit of same-sex marriage as a “stand-alone” issue permitted right-wing politicians and the Christian Right to exploit marriage as an issue of backlash politics, strengthening the attack on alternative forms of family, including not only the LGBT communities but also single parents and others living outside of conventional family structures. From a political standpoint, the authors of the statement pointed out that existing same-sex partner and parenting benefi ts had been rolled back in the backlash against same-sex marriage and, therefore, they argued that the movement should push for a much broader set of policy goals including: “[l]egal recognition for a wide range of relationships, households and families-regardless of kinship or conjugal status; [a]ccess for all, regardless of marital or citizenship status, to vital government support programs including but not limited to health care, housing, Social Security and pension plans, disaster recovery assistance, unemployment insurance, and welfare assistance; [s]eparation of church and state in all matters, including regulation and recognition of relationships, households and families; [and] [f]reedom from state regulation of our sexual lives and gender choices, identities and expression” (Beyond Marriage 2006).