heternormatizingly getting better... i'm getting married, not.

After an electorate-based rejection of gay marriage in 11 different US States, the re-election of another Tory majority government here in Alberta, and the tiptoeing of federal liberals around the issue of gay weddings, I find myself worried about the future of the homosexual. I’m not trying to suggest that there’s an imminent end to the history of the homosexual’s fight for equality, or even that there will be an escalation of intolerance towards the GLBT community. Instead, I worry about the pressures of heteronormativity on the homosexual, in all aspects of life.

(And no, I’m not saying that gay marriage is wrong because it’s a breeder’s institution; instead, I’m worried about the discourses spawned by the ultra-right’s political/discursive dominance in popular culture/media).

Lesbians, transgendered peoples, bisexuals and gays are all different than heterosexuals. As Harry Hays is well known for arguing, queers differ from heterosexuals much the way other ethnic groups differ from Euro-Americans: we have our shared values, modes of communication, historical heritage, psychological orientations and behavioural patterns. Indeed, there are similarities, but it is not on these like comparisons that the meaning of Gay Pride is founded; instead, our pride is founded on diversity and variation; on differences and dissimilarities. We can deviate from the norm, and not worry about it.

The problem is, when we deviate, we’re doing it in a society that has actively fought against our rights, a heterocentric society that can make the most trivial of differences into fundamental moral dilemmas. A lot of queers don’t want to deviate from the heteronorms for fear of continued persecution. And it makes sense. Let’s do a paradigm shift! And not into the postmodern pomosexual circular/lack-of reasoning paradigm… Let’s do something absolutely different! But I don’t know what yet. I’ll think on it.