"Smash Monogamy" And Other Dumb Political Ideas

[LeoCasey at aol.com]

It has always been impossible for me to read the manifestoes of the Sex 
Panic group, some of which have been posted here in the last few days, 
without being reminded of that eminently dumb political slogan of the 
1960s, 'smash monogamy.' It invokes, for me, the seemingly unlimited 
capacity of segments of the American left to position itself in the most 
self-destructive, most marginal posture possible. In the name of 
"liberation" and "emancipation," an agenda is put forward that tells people 
-- straight, gay, lesbian and bisexual -- that the left will invade their 
most intimate relationships, with an agenda of breaking them up and 
destroying them. Dumb, dumb, dumb.

Leaving aside the incredible capacity for deliberate self-marginalization 
here, the old 'we are revolutionary, because nobody can stomach our 
revolutionary ideas' pose, the political issue at stake is how one changes 
for the better societies under the sway of homogenizing sexual disciplines, 
in which a singular norm of heterosexual marriage is established and 
conformity to it is rigorously policed. One can seek to de-homogenize, to 
pluralize the norm, to make the norm more and more heterogeneous as its 
reach is expanded to cover more and more diverse types of human 
relationships and human beings, thus according a greater and greater number 
of people the rights and privileges which are currently reserved for those 
within the homogeneous norm; this is the path that the African-American 
freedom struggle and the feminist struggle has historically pursued, with 
some successes. Or one can disown the very idea of any norms, however 
heterogeneous, and insist upon the targeting of relations and individuals 
within the norm as the 'enemy'. This is the Sex Panic approach, for which 
the expansion and pluralizing of the norm is simply the reconstitution of 
'queer' as 'normal.' For them, it is more important that the 'queer' remain 
the unassimilated 'queer' than that queers have the full rights and 
privileges of other citizens.

I submit that the first approach is the only politically and ethically 
sound approach. It is the only approach which has any hope of political and 
social advancement for the excluded. Unless one wants to await in 
anticipation the New Jerusalem, in which all social conflict and 
contradiction is washed away, in which everyone becomes 'queer' by choice, 
there is no other political strategy. Indeed, the Sex Panic approach is a 
way of ensuring the purity of the 'elect,' of avoiding contamination by the 
normalizing pollution of the existing society, until the day of the New 
Jerusalem.

It is also the only approach which I find ethically defensible. I do not 
accept that we should live in a norm-less world of sexuality. There should 
be egalitarian and pluralist norms, enforced by law. Sexual relations must 
not be coercive. Sexual relations should be private, free from intrusion 
and extrusion; people should be able to use a public restroom without being 
an unwilling witness to other's sexual acts. Young children should be 
protected from sexual exploitation. [You will not find me, in the pose of 
libertarianism gone wild, being espousing tolerance for pedophilia]. And so on.

Further, I think that society has an interest in the healthy rearing of 
children, and to that end, it has a responsibility and a right to encourage 
and promote stable couple relationships. As someone who is raising 
children, I think that there is little question but that two adults will 
find child rearing a whole lot easier, and manage it a whole lot better, 
than a single parent. [I am not saying that a couple should stay together 
simply for child rearing, but that all other things being equal and then 
some, a couple is going to be able to do the job better, with a lot less 
stress on themselves.]

What needs to be challenged here is not the interest of society in 
promoting stable, long-term couples [marriage, if you will], but the idea 
that only heterosexual couples should be parents. Parenthood should be a 
choice available to all. Even a responsible individual should be able to 
adopt. What needs to be addressed is the responsibility of society to make 
the duties of parenthood a lesser burden on parents [ie, low cost, quality 
child care; quality schooling and after-school activities, etc.].

There is no need to demonize, to attack, to pathologize those who want no 
part of child rearing, or those who do not want to be part of long-term, 
stable relationships. But the notion that one should not extend legal 
institutions, rights and privileges, such as marriage, to gay men and 
lesbians because this would somehow undermine those who do not want to be 
married simply fails all reasonable political and ethical tests. There are 
millions of straight people who chose to live outside of marriage, and it 
has been decades since any of them suffered in the slightest for it.



Leo Casey
United Federation of Teachers
260 Park Avenue South
New York, New York 10010-7272
212-98-6869

Power concedes nothing without a demand.
It never has, and it never will.
If there is no struggle, there is no progress.
Those who profess to favor freedom, and yet deprecate agitation are men who 
want crops without plowing the ground. They want rain without thunder and 
lightning. They want the ocean without the awful roar of its waters.
-- Frederick Douglass --

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