Rachel Maddow on Marriage's Threat to Gay Culture
The inimitable Rachel Maddow gets a cover story in the Hollywood Reporter in which she discusses a variety of topics, including marriage. She's not ready for it quite yet:
Maddow keeps an apartment in Manhattan, but she decamps to the solitude of Northampton, Mass. on weekends, where she lives with her girlfriend of 12 years, artist Susan Mikula, and Poppy, their black Labrador. The couple met in 1999 when Mikula hired Maddow to dig tree stumps out of her front yard. "It was love at first sight," says Maddow.
Gay marriage was legalized in Massachusetts in 2004, but Maddow says she and Mikula have no immediate wedding plans. "We know a lot of people who have gotten married but I don't think we feel any urgency about it."
Later she admits that she's actually ambivalent about the cultural impact of gay marriage.
"I feel that gay people not being able to get married for generations, forever, meant that we came up with alternative ways of recognizing relationships," she explains. "And I worry that if everybody has access to the same institutions that we lose the creativity of subcultures having to make it on their own. And I like gay culture."
Maddow also talks about meeting Sarah Palin, and what about the meeting made her think Palin could be insightful.
Rachel Maddow: How This Wonky-Tonk Woman Won TV [hollywood reporter]
I obviously support marriage equality, but I'm equally ambivalent about actually getting married. Going through the protracted breakup of a very long-term relationship was tough enough without the acrimony and costs of divorce. And let's face it, a wedding can be lovely, but many couples---gay or straight---don't stay together forever.
Again, I absolutely think that gays and lesbians should be able to marry. But for some of us, it's not a move that's pressing or necessary.
My views may be conditioned by the fact that I'm a lifelong atheist, and while I realize that marriage is a civil affair, it's difficult to fully remove its association with religion. You can pretend otherwise, but the vast majority of weddings are presided over by a religious figure. But these are simply my views, and I don't judge or debase those who feel otherwise. Indeed, in some ways I'm envious. But seeing 17 years with someone end has likely made me dubious about long-term relationships.
Posted by: Paul R | Oct 6, 2011 11:33:39 PM
I wish more of the article would have been on her thoughts concerning marriage. I don't see marriage bringing a big change to gay culture. We still have tons of cruising (the invention of Grindr for heavens sake, lol), open relationships, and subcultures despite the advancing rainbow of marriage equality. What's changed? I think people just want more protections and equal treatment for their families. If they can get that through civil unions or whatever I'm sure they would be for it. No one is forcing anyone to get married, it's about choice and equal treatment/protection under the law. I don't see how that's something to be indifferent about.
Posted by: Lazlo | Oct 7, 2011 1:41:57 AM
Surely, had her stump digger been on a temporary work visa and in need of US sponsorship, she'd be at the front of the 'End-DOMA-full-marriage' line and the need for the subculture to thrive at the back of her mind. Though, then again, when you have the half a million dollars to invest in a green card for your partner, maybe not.
Posted by: whatsmyparty | Oct 8, 2011 9:34:04 AM
Isn't that the point? That access to the institution of marriage is what provides access to a variety of benefits ranging from immigration to health care and that those who are not a part of that institution by choice or by chance have been shut out of those benefits. Marriage equality may open up rights to more individuals but is certainly not universally liberating if people have to participate in the institution in order to get those rights. It does nothing about the stigmatization and marginalization of those who fall outside of the new boundaries of normal.
Posted by: Emma Peel | Oct 8, 2011 2:50:21 PM
Prior to the income tax people just used wills to do everything that "marriage laws" do now.
The laws that supposedly benefit marriage just give back a portion that was ill-gotten, anyway.
If we went to a sales tax or flat tax with no deductions and let everyone make a will this would also be a non-issue. People could marry whomever they wanted, leave money to whomever they wanted and it would be a true, equal tax.
Not that this has anything to do with Rachel Maddow, but I'm seeing more and more how our stupid tax code has created social problems and social justice issues.
Posted by: Rin | Oct 8, 2011 3:56:26 PM
She has a point- no one ever talks about the inherent homophobia in thinking we can never be proper people until we've re-created heterosexual society for our own. Waiting now for the comments about how gay pride parades denigrate us and how we need to be sanitized for heterosexual approval in 5..4..3....
Posted by: MaddM@ | Oct 12, 2011 2:35:12 PM
My Partner (of 32 or 33 years) were first married when Gavin Newsome took a stand for gay marriage in 2004. That was a stand for the rights that were denied us. We married again in 2008, within the window of opportunity before Prop 8 was passed. I must say though that there is something to what Rachel is saying. I feel that we might all, homo and hetero sexuals, benefit more from good common law marriage laws. Marriage itself is an artifice derives from chauvinist policies. And marrying under heterosexual laws is confusing and cumbersome. We could not decide who was the bride or who was the groom, so we just called each other brooms. We still can't decide what our last name is so we each retain our own. In many ways love can't be legislated. And I really love some outlaws. And was not welcomed by inlaws.
Posted by: Jeanne | Oct 18, 2011 4:35:03 PM
Equality _under the law_ is what matters. For most of us, the right to form Civil Unions - and not necessarily a marriage is what matters. The latter is more of a Social and Religious construct. Maybe Mainstreaming is inevitble, but I too feel we're losing something in the processess of being 'just like them'.
Posted by: Gay Tribe USA | Jun 3, 2012 8:17:14 PM