by attacking critics of marriage as "trust fund babies" completely ignores the radical feminist (especially feminists of color) critique of marriage that many NON trust fund babies pioneered. i understand wanting/needing healthcare and the ability to make decisions for your partner. but those privileges should be availble to all people in all types of relationships. by fighting for marriage, you are creating a social and moral hierarchy of relationships that perpetuates society's valuing of certain types of people over others. you can still believe in the idea of queers (oh, i'm sorry... "gays and lesbians") being treated humanely in our society without supporting every bloodthirsty institution that exists. oh, and i AM critical of my straight friends that get married too, not just gays.

My earlier comment on class is on spot because most of those who critique campaigners for equal marriage rights are singularly oblivious to it when discussing the issue. Equal marriage rights is a near-term, silver bullet for getting many working class Lesbians and Gays equal benefits which others of their/our class can already access.

Unless you're living in a fantasy land, saying you're in favor of single payer universal health care, etc. is no substitute for this. In the United States, which spends as much on its military as the rest of the world's nations combined (oh, and by the way, Obama said he'll increase the size of the military by 90k troops), and $3 trillion the projected cost of the Afghanistan and Iraq wars, the near-term possibility of truly free, universal health care is a fantasy. By contrast, assuming the California Supreme Court decision holds against a projected referendum, Lesbians and Gays in that state will have immediate access to hundreds of benefits. If the federal Defense of Marriage Act (thank you, Bill Clinton, for that) were repealed, an additional 1,138 benefits would also ensue, according to a 2004 General Accounting Office study.

Organizing for equal legal rights in marriage (for gays, women, interracial couples, etc.) is no more about supporting a "bloodthirsty institution" than fighting for equal rights in the workplace, itself a truly "bloodthirsty institution." Far more so than the 21st century family, the workplace is the quintessential unequal, undemocratic, authoritarian institution, but does this mean we should say to hell with those who campaign for equal rights for racially oppressed groups, women, gays, etc. within the workforce? Is demanding equal wages or other less exciting reforms something to be pissed upon, and demanding workers' control of the workplace the only thing we should favor?

Finally, I find it ironic that someone who claims to be speaking on behalf of "radical feminist[s] (especially feminists of color)" should have so much fun deriding the terms "gays and lesbians" in favor of the term "queer," when studies of African American LGBTs show that they overwhelmingly reject the term "queer" in reference to themselves. A National Gay and Lesbian Task Force survey of African American LGBT's reported:

"When respondents were asked which one label out of a very extensive list…comes closest to how you describe your sexual orientation, 42 percent of the sample self-identified as gay, 24 percent chose the label lesbian, 11 percent checked the category bisexual, and 1 percent marked transgender…. In contrast to the high levels of agreement on the labels gay and lesbian, Black GLBT people do not readily, or even remotely, identify as 'queer.' 'Queer' was one of the least popular options, receiving few responses (1 percent)."

["Say It Loud: I'm Black and I'm Proud", The Policy Institute of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, 2002.]

The truth is that the term "queer" has rarely been popular amongst LGBTs, except those in academia, and the proliferation of "queer theory" has been remarkable for its disconnectedness with actual working class LGBT life.

Finally, in terms of which issues African American LGBTs said they see as most important, the authors of the above-mentioned report were surprised by the result: "The [high level of] support for marriage in the sample is especially interesting not only because it was most forcefully embraced by women, but also because it contradicts the position of those, most often on the left, who see marriage as an issue most salient to White GLBT communities."

Given the much higher percentages of African American and Latina couples (presumably disproportionately working class) vs. white male couples raising kids, they shouldn't have been surprised. At the risk of sounding completely unromantic, same-sex couples raising kids, like different-sex couples, often get married so as to better secure the futures of their kids. Once again class enters the picture, something "queer theorists" are typically oblivious to.