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Show Sexual Liberty & Same-Sex Marriage: An Argument from Bisexuality Michael Boucai Associate Professor, SUNY Buffalo Law School January 27, 2014 University of Utah S.J. Quinney College of Law1. THE LEGAL CLAIM Same-sex marriage bans substantially burden the right to choose homosexual relations and relationships. 2. A BISEXUAL CLAIMANT Bisexuals are uniquely vulnerable to the "compulsory heterosexuality" of marriage. 3. BISEXUALITY AND THE POLITICS OF CONTAINMENT The bisexual's claim refutes on normative, not empirical, grounds the fear that gay rights will abet "the spread of homosexuality." 4. BRINGING OUT BISEXUALITY The success of gay equality claims does not and should not depend on bisexual erasure. • The Claim of Identity Negation • The Conduct-Status Conflation • The Immutability ExcuseGwen, who is now married to a man, never considered herself a very sexual person. When she was nineteen, she became unexpectedly romantically and sexually involved with a close female friend, and they carried on an intense affair for more than a year. She thinks that most women probably have some degree of attraction for women, whether or not they acknowledge or act on it. But Gwen thinks it is unlikely that she will ever again be involved with a woman. Most of her attractions are focused on her husband these days[, but] … she still has more sexual fantasies about women than about men. Monica admits that she sometimes thinks the only reason she is ever attracted to men is that she has been socialized to find them attractive. But other times, she feels that those attractions are authentic. Her emotional bonds with women are more intense and satisfying, but she has never been involved with a woman. … She is now happily married to a man who considers her to be "100 percent straight-end of story." Her husband is not aware that she is still attracted to women and fantasizes about them several times a week. Lisa Diamond, Sexual Fluidity: Understanding Women's Love and Desire (2008), pp. 91-92. 1. THE LEGAL CLAIM Same-sex marriage bans substantially burden the right to choose homosexual relations and relationships. 2. A BISEXUAL CLAIMANT Bisexuals are uniquely vulnerable to the "compulsory heterosexuality" of marriage. 3. BISEXUALITY AND THE POLITICS OF CONTAINMENT The bisexual's claim refutes on normative, not empirical, grounds the fear that gay rights will abet "the spread of homosexuality." 4. BRINGING OUT BISEXUALITY The success of gay equality claims does not and should not depend on bisexual erasure. • The Claim of Identity Negation • The Conduct-Status Conflation • The Immutability ExcuseAn Argument from Bisexuality for Same-Sex Marriage Three Interventions • UNIVERSALIZING GAY RIGHTS • BISEXUAL REPRESENTATION • SEXUAL LIBERTY "We are committed to achieving full recognition of the civil rights of lesbians, gay men, bisexuals, transgender people and those with HIV…." - Mission Statement, Lambda Legal (2012). "The terms ‘minoritizing' and ‘universalizing' record and respond to the question, ‘In whose lives is hetero/homosexual definition an issue of continuing difficulty?'" - Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick, Epistemology of the Closet (1990). "It is possible to imagine sex-neutral marriage as a step toward the more fundamental goal of sexual justice, not just formal equality before the law." - Michael Warner, The Trouble with Normal (1999). |
