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than others, benefiting a privileged few, but piling further stigma upon those that did
not or could not conform to marital norms. She reasoned that marriage equality
would mean ceding further regulatory power over intimate relationships to a
patriarchal, heterosexist state, leading to a drive towards sameness rather than
difference, and resulting in the assimilation of a minority of gay and lesbian couples
within a heterosexist mainstream. Acknowledging the need for legal rights and
social recognition, Ettelbrick did, however, come out in favour of domestic
partnership, not as a stepping stone to marriage, but as a means of validating nonmarital
relationships and breaking the stranglehold of heterosexual marriage on
family policy and social affirmation.
Queer and liberal framings of marriage
The dialogue that Ettelbrick and Stoddard set in train brings to light the complexities
of LGB perspectives for and against legal recognition, as well as reflecting the sense
of self-doubt, hesitation and uncertainty that characterises the debate. This initial
exchange also sets out the two competing frames that have come to characterise the
debate on same-sex marriage within the LGBT communities in North America and
beyond. Smith (2007) separates these two broad perspectives into rights frames
that depict marriage as a civil right, as a matter of equality, and queer frames which
seek to maintain the distinctiveness of non-heterosexual relationships and view
marriage as an unhelpful step towards assimilation. The normative implications of
marriage are immediately thrown into relief by David Halperin’s definition of queer
as, “by definition whatever is at odds with the normal, the legitimate, the dominant”
(1995, p 62).
Queer critics of marriage decry the apparent obsession with legal equality on the
part of liberal-reformist LGBT organisations such as Egale in Canada, the Human
Rights Campaign in the US and Stonewall in the UK. Particular scorn is reserved for
conservative gays and lesbians, the so-called “homocons” whose ambitions are
limited to securing, “a place at the table” (Goldstein, 2002, p. xi), or the chance to
show the world that they are respectable, that they can be trusted in polite
company. In this context, Richardson (1998) has argued that partnership rights were
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