Document Type
Article
Publication Date
2005
Abstract
The struggle for marriage equality in this country is ripe for an intervention. If the effort continues along in the manner in which it has been headed, gay couples may or may not succeed in gaining access to civil marriage. But even if gay couples succeed in "getting marriage," the gay rights movement may have missed a critical opportunity-a chance to make a positive moral case for gay sex and gay couples. In other words, it will have missed the opportunity to argue that "gay is good."
Moreover, to the extent that the struggle for marriage equality focuses solely on achieving the right to marry because that is what a pure equality discourse calls for, the movement will also miss the chance to make a moral case for supporting the range of other creative ways in which we currently construct our intimate relations outside of marriage. And that would be as much of a missed opportunity as would be the lost opportunity of convincing the general public of the moral equivalence of gay and heterosexual sex.
Publication Citation
17 Yale J.L. & Feminism 139-184 (2005)
Scholarly Commons Citation
Feldblum, Chai R., "Gay Is Good: The Moral Case for Marriage Equality and More" (2005). Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works. 1091.
https://scholarship.law.georgetown.edu/facpub/1091
Included in
Civil Rights and Discrimination Commons, Family Law Commons, Gender and Sexuality Commons, Sexuality and the Law Commons