Reject their doomsday rhetoric.

Apocalyptic scenarios dominate the rhetoric of those opposed to same-sex marriage. Straight opponents see the end of marriage, the nation and democracy on the horizon. George W. Bush wants to ban same-sex marriage because “the preservation of marriage rises to the level of national concern.” This is because “marriage cannot be severed from its cultural, religious and natural roots without weakening the good influence of society.” National well-being depends on the vitality of “the most fundamental institution of civilization.” Finally, same-sex marriage must be resisted because it undermines democracy: “arbitrary court decisions” and renegade local officials are trumping “an overwhelming consensus in our country.”1 However, queer critics of marriage, too, are concerned about the effects of marriage — albeit on queer community and citizenship. For example, Judith Butler expresses her and others’ unease, namely that “their sense of an alternative movement is dying. Sexual politics was supposed to be about finding alternatives to marriage.”2 Same-sex marriage thus seems to spell the end of lesbian and gay community or politics. Their opposition to same-sex marriage puts queer marriage critics, as Michael Warner acknowledges, in the strange company of “homophobic dinosaurs.”3

Why this doomsday rhetoric, which outpaces and exceeds the likely consequences of same-sex marriage? Because same-sex marriage calls into question the perpetuation of community in the face of mortality. In one case, reproduction of community quite literally is understood as sexual reproduction of community; homosexuality in this instance is presented as lethal because it is non-reproductive. Queer opposition to marriage, on the other hand, presents marriage as a lethal force to a community that does not raise its succeeding generations. In this case, the fear is that an instrument of heteronormativity overwhelms precarious queer processes of socialization and regeneration. In short, both arguments are concerned with the perpetuation of community in light of the absence of gay sexual reproduction.4

Why are these anxieties about the preservation of existing modes of citizenship across time anxieties about mortality? Because citizenship — world-making of any kind — is always also about coping with human finitude, as Zygmunt Bauman points out:

Such a life — life forgetful of death, life lived as meaningful and worth living, life alive with purposes instead of being crushed and incapacitated by purposelessness — is a formidable human achievement. The totality of social organization, the whole of human culture (not certain functionally specialized institutions, nor certain functionally specialized cultural precepts) co-operate to make this achievement possible.5

Bauman emphasizes that concern with death and efforts to give meaning to life by transcending death are not to be understood as religious matters, i.e. as falling within the provenance of certain ethical dispositions or cultural institutions. Many aspects of culture, which apparently bear no relation to existential consolation, are very much concerned with it. Indeed, they become highly effective inasmuch the aspiration to transcend death remains unarticulated.6

Anything that appears to challenge the perpetuation of community evokes the fear of death. This is why both straight and gay opponents react so intensely to same-sex marriage — they fear the extinction of the form of community that provides them with existential consolation. For straight opponents, George Weinberg’s explanation is salient: “The notion that there are homosexuals distresses some people because the thought of persons without children reawakens their fear of death. Today in the larger population, vicarious immortality through having children and grandchildren assuages the spirit of millions and blunts the edge of mortality for them. Our great glorification of reproduction, with all the customs and modes that advance it, serves in part as a ceremony to circumvent death as if by magic.”7 My argument elaborates how Weinberg’s point applies to the debate on same-sex marriage, and expands it to include queer critiques of marriage. In the latter case, queer cultural practices and politics — chiefly, finding alternatives to marriage — function as the “children” who provide existential consolation, that is, allow for the conclusion: “He died, but his work lives on.”8

My argument, though based on a comparison, does not attribute equal ethical weight to the two sides. To the contrary, I am indebted to queer theory’s critique of heteronormativity, and consider my argument as a contribution to queer theory. This contribution is two-fold: first, I hope to flesh out one account of heteronormativity that is largely neglected, namely heteronormativity’s reliance on the fear of death. The association of homosexuality with death is not exhausted by homophobic discourses on HIV/ AIDS. It precedes the emergence of AIDS. As Paul Morrison notes, “the epidemic has resolved, rather than occasioned, a crisis in signification: the crisis that has always been gay sexuality itself...The cultural function of AIDS has been to stabilize, through a specifically narrative or novelistic logic, the truth of gay identity as death or death wish.”9 Gay men are considered “a population doomed to extinction, anyway.”10This logic of lethal homosexuality relies on the childlessness of homosexuality, and thus concerns both lesbians and gay men. It is this underlying association of sexual reproduction with immortality and citizenship, which I emphasize in the discussion that follows.

My second contribution to queer theory consists in challenging some of its assumptions on how best to challenge heteronormativity. Morris Kaplan, for example, has argued that same-sex marriage could be part and parcel of a queer politics.11 Queer critics, on the other hand, have attacked same-sex marriage as fundamentally undermining queer community and politics. This logic of pure resistance, of queer exteriority, makes it impossible to think of same-sex marriage in other than apocalyptic terms. Unexamined anxieties about mortality raise the stakes in the debate on same-sex marriage. Explaining what sustains apocalyptic interpretations of same-sex marriage could contribute to an appreciation of a pluralized approach to community and equality, i.e. heeds Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick’s call for a “a practical politics . . . for a multi-pronged movement.”12

Extinction I — Heteronormativity and the Fear of Death

Homophobic groups are aware that a more radical argument — that homosexuality itself is the lethal threat instead of “unsafe” homosexual sex — stands in the way of full equality for lesbians and gay men.13 Opponents of lesbians and gay men cannot accept same-sex marriage because it would taint marriage with death. My argument draws on William J. Bennett as well as Family Research Council (FRC) authors Paul Cameron, William L. Playfair and Stephen Wellum. Though the former is more “civil” than the latter group, they agree in their indictment of homosexuality and same-sex marriage — and all argue against same-sex marriage because they associate homosexuality with death. While I draw on right-wing authors to flesh out the heteronormative construal of lesbians and gay men as lethal threat, I do so because “the discourse of the right thus tends toward a greater awareness of, and an insistence on, the figural logics implicit in the social relations we inhabit and enact.”14 In other words, though the following could be understood as an exposition of right-wing ideology, and as such could be contextualized regarding its place within a broader right-wing agenda, my argument emphasizes how these authors reveal a wider cultural logic, which can not be reduced to an ideological position within a political spectrum.

The FRC authors write against equal rights for lesbians and gay men because they judge “the overall healthfulness of a life-style ... by the average life-span associated with it.”15 Longevity indicates a healthy life-style; premature death indicates the opposite. And lesbians and gay men, so the FRC authors, do not fare well on this register:

The discrepancy between the median life-span of married men and homosexuals (i.e., 75 - 42 = 33 years ignoring AIDS deaths) or married women and lesbians (i.e., 79 — 45 = 34 years) is considerably larger than any registered discrepancy between “conventional” life-styles (e.g., smokers v. non-smokers; high fat v. low fat diet) which we could locate in the literature. In terms of “unconventional” lifestyles, homosexuality appears similar to the shortened and more violent lives of intravenous drug users.16

Gay men die 33 years before their straight counterparts, the authors claim — and this does not factor in AIDS, which further lowers the average gay male life-span.17 Lesbians fare no better. They die 34 years before their straight sisters, and thus at average ages like their gay male counter-parts. It is no accident that the authors see lesbians and gay men as having the same life expectancy: their argument about the moral weight of individual longevity aims to indict homosexuality as such, i.e. not only gay men, whose HIV infection rates far surpass those of lesbians. Female homosexuality must be just as lethal, so that homosexuality itself becomes a health risk. Accordingly, only smokers and those with high fat diets presumably live healthier lives than lesbians and gay men. The FRC authors claim that only those who use hard drugs live as unhealthily as lesbians and gay men. Homosexuality is something to be discouraged similar to efforts to combat these other ‘afflictions.’18

The FRC authors think of homosexuality as a fatal affliction independent of AIDS. Indeed, the authors go out of their way to “document” a shortened life expectancy for gay men as far back as 1858 and up to the immediate aftermath of Stonewall.19 For example, they use the median age of 25 of men imprisoned for sodomy in 1858 France and a 1914 report by Magnus Hirschfeld, which found a similar median age for German men convicted for sodomy, to speculate that fewer gay men reach old age.20

While there might be plenty to say on what makes the FRC authors’ piece bad social science, any methodological problems only result from their desire to find an inherent connection between homosexuality and death .21 The fatal nature of homosexuality is argued in two ways. First, the authors locate short life expectancy in sexual excessiveness. They cite a 1956 “study” comparing the life expectancy of Catholic saints with kings. The longer lives of the former group are attributed to their “sexual moderation.” The authors cannot imagine moderation among gay men: Sexual excess — both in terms of number of partners and in what is done sexually — is presented as shortening gay men’s lives. While STDs may contribute to this problem, they are presented as an alternative explanation. A lot of gay sex is taken to be sufficient to weaken the body, and to hasten the death of a gay man.22

Second, the FRC authors speculate that the absence of heterosexual intercourse in itself has life-shortening biochemical consequences. Unknown life-draining or life-giving substances are either taken to pass or not pass between gay men. Gay sex may thus be directly harmful in some imperceptible biological fashion, or heterosexual sex may be beneficial and life-sustaining in some equally imperceptible biological fashion. Alternatively, psychological stress resulting from the absence of heterosexual gender complementarity in gay couples is presented as possibly explaining a weakening of the body.23

Why do these authors concoct strange theories about mysterious substances? Why do they not, as others have, invoke AIDS to argue that homosexuality is dangerous? To begin with, this would not address their opposition to equality for lesbians.24 Moreover, reliance on AIDS would leave the argument vulnerable to calls for same-sex marriage. Indeed, the authors note that legalization of same-sex marriage has been proposed as a way for reducing HIV transmission and STDs more generally among gay men.25 The FRC authors reject this argument: “No evidence that having a homosexual long time sexual partner (LTSP) might be protective of the participants’ health surfaced . . .these data lend no support to the notion of public health benefits from homosexual marriage.”26 To the contrary, gay couples’ life expectancy would be shorter than that of single gay men. To increase life expectancy, Cameron, in a follow-up article, advises to either “quit” homosexuality or to “stay unpartnered.”27 The only marriages that do extend life span of gay men, incidentally, are opposite-sex marriages.28 “Marriage between disturbed and unstable people invariably creates problems rather than solves them. . .Legitimizing their unhealthy and violent relationships will only exacerbate the problem.”29

The implication is clear: Do not legalize same-sex marriage; it is as tainted with death as homosexuality itself. Gay marriage is thus as dangerous — if not more so — as any other form of gay life. Conversely, any individual wanting to avoid the shortening of his or her life should marry a person of the opposite sex. Personal and public health then go hand in hand. In short, these authors attempt to frame the debate about same-sex marriage in ways that make its legalization impossible. After all, who would want to encourage a suicidal life-style?30

The FRC authors are not alone in linking homosexuality and death. Others who reach a wider audience do so too. For example, William J. Bennett, former Reagan secretary of education, Bush drug czar, and prolific author on matters moral, objects to same-sex marriage because it would help to destroy marriage, Western Civilization and democracy.31 Bennett’s imagination of catastrophe has to do with what he considers the death-bound nature of homosexuality.

Bennett walks a fine line in his argument against same-sex marriage. He describes his argument as operating in a context, which has rendered any objection to the normalization of homosexuality akin to racism, i.e. beyond the pale of proper political discourse.32 Bennett does not want to be branded a bigot, because that would render him without influence. Accordingly, “traditionalists” like him need to advocate their beliefs in civil ways. They need to be legible as participating in a democratic debate. And they need to think of their opponents as sharing a common humanity.33 At the same time, “this does not mean, however, that we should give up the fight for the principles on which our civilization stands, or yield to those who would subvert our moral creed.”34 Civil language thus shrouds the incivility of Bennett’s views on lesbians and gay men. However, his incivility has a way of breaking to the surface. For example, in a Los Angeles Times editorial Bennett criticizes the Republican attempt to amend the U.S. constitution to prohibit same-sex marriage as insufficient, because it permits states to create civil unions: “the distinction between a civil union and a marriage is no greater than that between slavery and involuntary servitude.”35 The analogy to slavery render same-sex marriage profoundly undemocratic and unethical, i.e. contradicts his previous call for civility.

Bennett’s argument against same-sex marriage begins with a consideration of the positive effects described by its advocates. These gay conservatives claim that same-sex marriage is “conservative in the best sense of the word” and that it would strengthen marriage and family in general.36 Bennett begs to differ. On the contrary, same-sex marriage would be “the most revolutionary change ever made” in the history of marriage. This institution would become meaningless and central tenants of Western civilization would be discarded. Thus, marriage’s rootedness in Christian and Jewish faith, in gender complementarity, in reproduction and in the disapproval of homosexuality would have been done away with.37 “In short, society would have to accept that marriage is an arbitrary social construct that can be and should be pried apart from its cultural, biological, and religious underpinnings and redefined by anyone laying claim to it.”38 Society would have no arguments against incest or polygamy. When the “pillars” of tradition and religion are destroyed, civilization and ordered society themselves will dissolve. “This way, chaos follows: social chaos no less than intellectual and moral chaos.”39 Society and civilization, as Bennett knows them, will become extinct.

Why does Bennett believe that homosexuality is lethal for marriage and civilization? Bennett believes that legalizing same-sex marriage would unleash the inherent destructiveness of homosexuality. Indeed, lesbians and gay men do not want to get married because of a desire to affirm the cultural values embodied by marriage — as gay conservatives claim — but instead, in the words of gay columnist Michelangelo Signorile, “to debunk a myth and radically alter an archaic institution that as it now stands keeps us down.”40

The destructive intent and effects of the campaign for same-sex marriage derive from a destructive sexual orientation and practice. More precisely, gay men’s promiscuity would kill marriage, much like it has already lead to the deaths of so many gay men. Bennett explicitly rejects the argument that same-sex marriage might temper gay male promiscuity. It is women and children who domesticate (heterosexual) men, not marriage itself. If death — i.e. AIDS — cannot set gay men “straight,” then marriage won’t accomplish this task either. 41 While Bennett is too ‘civil’ to say that there is a suicidal sexuality at work, his linking of AIDS, promiscuity and gay identity makes this association clear. If gay men would rather die than become monogamous, then gay men would transform marriage instead of being changed by it.42 “Same-sex marriage in practice would lead to the further legitimation of ‘extramarital outlets’ for all.” Same-sex marriage would thus “subvert” marriage in its traditional meaning, which, given its current state, would mean the further erosion of the institution itself.43

The characterization of homosexuality as destructive is thus tied to a suicidal tendency putatively lodged in it. This association between homosexuality and death occurs repeatedly in Bennett’s chapter on same-sex marriage. Yet, this association does not necessarily depend on AIDS. The “sterility” of homosexuality provides a second anchor for Bennett’s argument against same-sex marriage, as evidenced by the example of fictional parents’ response to their 15-year old son’s coming out:

I am sure you would love him no less; but my guess is that you would grieve. It would derive from the fact that he was effectively removing himself from the stream of generations, from the blessings he would never be able to attain, the ties he would never enjoy or be enlarged by. ... You would know that he was about to enter a world filled with much despair, loneliness, and a fair likelihood of premature death.44

Coming out, as Bennett sees it, removes the individual from life properly speaking. The individual will not procreate, thus will not be part of “the stream of generations.” Heterosexuality, via sexual reproduction, offers the possibility of transcending death by becoming part of future generations. This the gay individual rejects, as he is “effectively removing himself” from the life-river of generations. The individual chooses death, in several senses of the term. First, the individual embraces the radical mortality of the self. He will never create another human being, ending the stream of generations that brought him to life. Second, the individual joins a world of “despair” and “loneliness” when he could have been part of the life-giving heterosexual world. It is a death-bound culture. Third, the gay individual will most likely die prematurely. That Bennett describes the fictional parents’ reaction to their son’s coming out as “grief” is thus to be taken quite literally. Their son just announced to them that his death will be earlier and more final than theirs. AIDS, in other words, merely confirms an inherent fatality of homosexuality. The real fatality of homosexuality concerns the underlying issue of sexual reproduction: “The fact that homosexual marriages would be intrinsically nonprocreative ought to tell us something significant all by itself.”45

Bennett is quick to point out that childless heterosexual couples do not suffer his moral judgment. Their sexuality is still “procreative” insofar it is normatively heterosexual.46 The nature of heterosexuality and marriage is defined by “that which is, always or for the most part.”47 So whether a given opposite-sex couple has children or not does not change anything about their procreative identity. They, as opposed to childless homosexuals, participate in the “stream of generations.” Conversely, Bennett would not consider lesbians, who conceive and raise children, as procreative, because their sexual identity renders them by definition non-procreative. In other words, that lesbian or gay sex does not lead to future life portends the consequences of the legalization of same-sex marriage. A death-bound sexuality and culture would subvert the dominant culture if it becomes incorporated:

For homosexuals themselves, gay liberation has wrought much agony, instability, promiscuity, and early death. There is very little in it that recommends itself to the rest of us. And if we are responsible, we will turn away this invitation to experiment cavalierly with our future.48

In short, to legalize same-sex marriage is to endorse a culture of death — a culture which enshrines non-reproductivity as a value.