Those who favour allowing same-sex couples to marry argue,
in public at least, that they seek only to extend 
marriage, and it is not their
intention to destroy it.
Some same-sex marriage advocates publicly disagree. One of
them is Russian-American lesbian activist and author Masha Gessen.
In a recent interview at a writers’ festival in Sydney, she admitted that the suggestion
that same-sex marriage would not significantly alter marriage was a lie.
Here’s what she had to say: “I mean, I agree, it’s a no
brainer that we should have the right to marry, but I also think equally that
it’s a no brainer that the institution of marriage should not exist, so that
causes my brain some trouble.”
(This received loud applause from the audience).
She continued: “And part of why it causes me some trouble is
because fighting for gay marriage generally involves lying about what we’re
going to do with marriage when we get there.
“You know, because we lie that the institution of marriage
is not going to change, and that is a lie. The institution of marriage is going
to change and it should change and again I don’t think it should exist. And I
don’t like taking part in creating fictions about my life, that’s sort of not
what I had in mind when I came out 30 years ago.”
Her reason for her antagonism to the institution of marriage
is her own family situation. As she describes it, she has three children, and
there are five parents in the picture. She thinks all five should be recognised
as the legal parents of the children.
In her own words: “I don’t see why we should take two of
those parents and make them into a sanctioned couple.”
Ms Gessen goes on to spell out the complicated nature of her
family structure:
“I got married in Massachusetts to my partner, my ex-partner, and
by that time we had two kids, one of whom was adopted and one of whom I gave
birth to.
“We broke up a couple of years after that and a couple of
years after that I met my new partner and she has just had a baby, and that
baby’s biological father is my brother and my daughter’s biological father is a
man who lives in Russia and my adopted son also considers him his father.”
So Gessen wants them all made legal parents. And by her logic, why not? Her problem is that the institution of marriage currently sanctions recognising only two parents as the legal parents of a child.
Once marriage is relativised, we can make it anything whatsoever. Gessen makes this perfectly clear. And if we can turn it into anything whatsoever, then it has no essence and why should we have it at all?
