The Japanese Journal of American Studies, No. 26 (2015)
Copyright © 2015 Ayumu Kaneko. All rights reserved. This work may be used, with thisnotice included, for noncommercial purposes. No copies of this work may be distributed,
electronically or otherwise, in whole or in part, without permission from the author.

The Same-Sex Marriage Campaign in the Age of
Neoliberalism

Ayumu Kaneko*

Is Same-Sex Marriage the Story of American Freedom?
America’s move toward legalization of same-sex marriage has accelerated
in the last decade. In 2004, only Massachusetts had legalized marriage ofsame-sex couples. As of January 1, 2015, same-sex marriage is legal inthirty-six states and the District of Columbia. The US Supreme Court ruledin 2013 that the main premise of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA),
which limits marriage only to heterosexual couples, is unconstitutional.1
Since the early twenty-first century, the same-sex marriage movement
has gained momentum. US public opinion has drastically changed in regard
to same-sex marriage over the last decade. According to a poll by the Pew
Research Center in 2003, 58 percent of Americans opposed same-sex
marriage, and only 33 percent approved of it; in 2013, 49 percent approvedof it, whereas 44 percent opposed it. In particular, nearly 70 percent of
millennials approved of it.2 The United States seems to be experiencing a
trend toward the public acceptance of legal same-sex marriage.
Supporters of same-sex marriage have described their cause as the roadto more perfect American freedom. In 2004, Evan Wolfson, a lawyer,
founded Freedom to Marry, a nonprofit organization to further the same-sex*Assistant Professor, Meiji University

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marriage campaign, and published a book supporting same-sex marriage. In
his book, he expressed his faith in the American ideals of freedom and love:
Fortunately, the general story of our country is movement toward
inclusion and equality. The majority of Americans are fair. They realizethat exclusionary conceptions of marriage fly in the face of our national
commitment to freedom as well as the personal commitment by loving
couples. Americans have been ready again and again to make thechanges needed to ensure that the institution of marriage reflects thevalues of love, inclusion, interdependence, and support.3
Similarly, Lambda Legal and Educational Fund, one of the oldest(established in 1973) gay rights advocacy organizations, in the 2010s
insisted that the founding principles of the republic should justify legalizationof same-sex marriage. It stressed that “the United States fought against
Britain’s tyrannical power and then founded itself on a constitution
promising equality and liberty to keep government tyranny in check” andurged the public “to show that the words of our constitution mean what theysay, and help people keep their commitments to loved ones.”4
The narrative of the rise of same-sex marriage as the progress of freedom
inherent in American history has resonated with the arguments of nonLGBT American liberal-leaning people. In January 2013, President Barack
Obama stated in his second inaugural address that “the most evident of
truths—that all of us are created equal” has guided the American people“through Seneca Falls, and Selma, and Stonewall.”5 For Obama, the samesex marriage movement is the latest successor to the legacy of freedom
struggles in American history. Some state and federal judges have employedsimilar logic regarding the American ideal when ruling same-sex marriagebans unconstitutional. In Bostic v. Rainey (2013), Federal Judge Arenda
Allen ruled Virginia’s same-sex marriage ban unconstitutional, saying thather decision was “consistent with our nation’s traditions of freedom.” Shecontinued, “Our nation’s uneven but dogged journey toward truer and moremeaningful freedoms for our citizens has brought us continually to a deeper
understanding” of the concept “we the people,” so that in legalizing samesex marriage we “celebrate the freedom of choice.”6
In the early twenty-first century, activists, historians, jurists, and social
scientists began to publish books on same-sex marriage. They elaborated on
the pros and cons of same-sex marriage in debates, the court’s roles inlegalizing gay marriage, and activists’ networking and maneuvers. Most ofThe Same-Sex Marriage Campaign in the Age of Neoliberalism

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this discussion has been within the narrative framework of progress, inwhich forces for the promotion of equality have faced and overcome
backlash from social conservatives and the religious Right.7
Some critics of the same-sex marriage campaign, however, point out that
proponents of same-sex marriage sanctify a nuclear family-like form of alegal union of two adults, often with children, and marginalize other forms
of intimate relations, including single-person households, single parents
with children, cohabiting couples without legal marriage, nonsexual unionsof adults, various forms of extended kinship, and communal child rearing.8
This critique suggests the need to locate the same-sex marriage movement
in a broader context of contemporary conditions of marriage in its social,economic, cultural, and political milieu. The issues of gay marriage cannot
be discussed without understanding the context of American governanceand society. What sort of policies, institutions, systems, or governances canbe legitimized by the discourses justifying same-sex marriage?
In this article I analyze the meaning of the same-sex marriage movementin the context of the historical transformation in American governance—that is, the neoliberal turn—from the 1980s to the 2010s. Neoliberalism is acomprehensive historical project that emerged in the political arena as a
response to the recession, deindustrialization, and fiscal crisis of the 1960s
and 1970s, and has been dominant since the 1980s. Its scheme is to promoteand naturalize the dominant status of the principle of the free market, toshrink the public sector by commodifying or privatizing it, and to legitimatize
these transformations by promulgating a new culture celebrating private
corporate management and trumpeting the virtues of self-help, self-reliance,and self-management for the individual.9 I elucidate the ways in which
America’s mainline marriage-equality campaign has acted in complicity
with the forces promoting and legitimatizing neoliberalism at the turn of thetwenty-first century.

From Revolution to Assimilation
The same-sex marriage campaign is a relatively new movement. Whenthe gay liberation movement emerged in the late 1960s, activists did notseek the right of legal marriage but rather the subversion of heterosexistsocial structures, including the institution of marriage. In 1969, immediately
after the Stonewall protest, the influential Gay Liberation Front declaredthemselves “a revolutionary group of men and women formed with therealization that complete sexual liberation for all people cannot come about

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unless existing social institutions are abolished.” Their goal was to create“new social forms and relations, that is, relations based upon brotherhood,cooperation, human love, and uninhibited sexuality.” It was natural that theidealized “existing social institutions” the radical activists desired to“abolish” included the institution of marriage. Many of their liberation
efforts were successful through the coming out of individuals and directprotest actions.10
The HIV/AIDS panic in the 1980s and the rise of homophobia deeply
influenced gay and lesbian movements. Explicitly sexual gay subcultures
relatively declined, while nonsexual social, cultural, and political institutions
in gay communities gained momentum. Gay sexuality was reconfigured toconform to that of the heterosexual majority of Americans, and many gays
and lesbians came to emphasize “dating” and “weddings” as their own
expressions of intimacy. Many came to prefer mutual commitment to casualsexual relations, which might be seen as promiscuous by mainstream
heterosexuals.11 In the 1990s, having children through adoption or
reproductive technology became popular among gay and especially lesbian
couples. Consequently, these couples came to confront various types oflegal discrimination such as denial of inheritance rights and custody, andthey thus became more eager to marry.12 From this background emerged thesame-sex marriage campaign.
A characteristic of this new movement was an inclination to break offfrom the radical ideology and tactics of gay liberation and to conform to theidealized straight lifestyle. One of the first major protagonists of same-sex
marriage along this line is Andrew Sullivan, a British-born conservative gay
commentator. In a 1989 essay in the New Republic, of which he was editor,
he suggested legalizing “old-style marriage for gays.” Sullivan decried“much of the gay leadership” for clinging to “essentially outsider, antibourgeois, radical” notions of a gay lifestyle and argued that for many gays
and lesbians, “a need to rebel has quietly ceded to a desire to belong.” “To
be gay and to be bourgeois” no longer seemed “such an absurd proposition.”
Since the AIDS panic, he asserted, “to be gay and to be responsible has
become a necessity.”13 For Sullivan, legalizing same-sex marriage had adisciplinary effect on homosexuals, imposing “more responsibilities upongays.” Once same-sex marriage was legalized, gays and lesbians would
become the same as straight citizens except for their sexual orientation. He
continued:

The Same-Sex Marriage Campaign in the Age of Neoliberalism

173[Same-sex marriage] would foster social cohesion, emotional security,and economic prudence. . . . It is not, in short, a denial of family values.
It’s an extension of them. . . . It could bring the essence of gay life—agay couple—into the heart of the traditional straight family in a way
the family can most understand and the gay offspring can most easily
acknowledge.14
In 2011, Sullivan wrote that legalization of gay marriage would provide
many gay children with “a model of commitment and responsibility andlove,” and would imply “integration.” He continued that same-sex marriage
was consistent with “the conservative tradition of reform and inclusion, ofsocial change through existing institutions, of the family and personal
responsibility.”15 By this, he meant that same-sex couples should have thesame marital life with heterosexual couples.
Contemporary same-sex advocacy organizations have shared thisassimilationist emphasis. In 2010, Freedom to Marry published a pamphletthat consistently chose the words “the freedom to marry” over “same-sex
marriage,” because “what we want is not some sort of separate and unequal‘gay marriage,’ but marriage itself,” claiming the need to acquire the “samerules, same responsibilities, same respect” as non-gay couples.16 It also
admonishes activists that they should not overemphasize the rights andbenefits of marriage for same-sex couples, for it might make heterosexual
people afraid that “same-sex couples really don’t understand, or share.”Instead, the pamphlet suggests, activists should “portray themes that[straight people] can identify with, that are common to us all—e.g. the idea
of marriage and what it means, having your commitment publicallywitnessed, taking care of your family.”17 Occasionally, marriage equality
advocates have conflated the discourse of right with that of duty. Lambda
Legal argued that if a same-sex marriage ban is lifted, “we all have equal
opportunity to contribute as best we can to our families, communities, andcountry.”18 Similarly, Third Way, a think tank for the promotion of moderate
policy-making, exhorted a strategic use of language to persuade non-LGBT
citizens. A Third Way report by Lanae Erickson Hatalsky urges gay andlesbian couples to prioritize the use of the term “commitment” over “right,”
because most Americans think of marriage as a commitment. Framingsame-sex marriage as an issue “of rights and benefits” would makemainstream American people wrongly believe that “gay couples want tomarry for reasons different than other couples.” Therefore, Hatalsky alerts,“Don’t say ‘gay marriage’ or even ‘same-sex marriage.’ These terms can174

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reinforce the notion that gay couples are seeking a different kind of
marriage.” Hatalsky recommends to use terms such as “marriage for gay
couples,” “allowing gay couples to marry,” or “the freedom to marry,” andto “avoid using an adjective modifying the word marriage.”19 Choosing
terminology as similar as possible to that used by heterosexual couples is an
important strategy for the mainstream same-sex marriage advocates.
For the activists and organizations, the stress on their similarity to straightcitizens is not only about abstract values of love and commitment. They
have also endeavored to show that same-sex couples seeking the right tomarry are respectable, patriotic, and socioeconomically middle-classcitizens. Andrew Sullivan described fund-raising dinner parties of the
Human Rights Campaign (HRC), one of the largest advocacy organizations
for gay rights, in these terms: “These dinners are a social venue for the
openly gay bourgeoisie: In tuxedos and ball gowns, they contribute large
sums and give awards to local businesses and politicians and community
leaders. There are silent auctions, hired entertainers, even the occasionalbake sale. The closest heterosexual equivalent would be the Rotary Club.”20
Activists for same-sex marriage in Goodridge v. Department of Public
Health (2003) also exemplified such efforts. Gay and Lesbian Advocatesand Defenders, a Boston-based LGBT organization, carefully selected
seven couples as its plaintiffs for the trial. All the plaintiffs were in
professional or managerial positions and in long-term committed
relationships with their partners; they were highly civic minded, and theirsocioeconomic status and civic activities were cited in the majority opinionof Goodridge.21 The advocates’ efforts thus struck a chord with the judgesof the Goodridge case, particularly Judge John Greaney, who wrote a
concurring opinion citing the impressiveness of the plaintiffs’ respectability:
The plaintiffs are members of our community, our neighbors, ourcoworkers, our friends. As pointed out by the court, their professions
include investment advisor, computer engineer, teacher, therapist, andlawyer. The plaintiffs volunteer in our schools, worship beside us in
our religious houses, and have children who play with our children, tomention just a few ordinary daily contacts. We share a common
humanity and participate together in the social contract that is thefoundation of our Commonwealth.22
The plaintiffs’ respectable middle-class profiles made a good impression
on Judge Greaney. If the plaintiffs had been working class or even lower

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class, would the perception of the judges have been different? It is impossible
to know, but it is plausible that the plaintiffs’ class status, the nature of theirrelationships, and their active civic participation had a positive effect on thedecision.23
For non-LGBT people, the image of same-sex couples as respectable,
productive, and patriotic citizens is important for legitimatizing theirsupport for the cause of same-sex marriage. During his campaign forreelection in 2012, President Obama publicly advocated the legalization ofsame-sex marriage when interviewed by Robin Roberts of ABC News. He
said that “if a soldier can fight for us, if a police officer can protect ourneighborhoods—if a fire fighter is expected to go into a burning building—to save our possessions or our kids,” denying them the right to marry shouldbe impermissible. Obama concluded, “That’s not who we are.”24
Following the assimilationist strategy, advocacy organizations argued
that same-sex marriage would not undermine the existing institution of
marriage. HRC’s pamphlet maintains that “opening marriage to couples
who are so willing to fight for it could only strengthen the institution for all.
It would open the doors to more supporters, not opponents.” It continues,“Granting same-sex couples the right to marry would strengthen theinstitution of marriage by allowing it to better meet the needs of the true
diversity of family structures in America today.”25 Advocates are insistentthat same-sex couples would neither destroy nor radically change theinstitution of marriage but, rather, sustain and energize it.
Such claims are appealing even to conservatives wanting to preserve theideal of marriage. For instance, wealthy businessman Paul E. Singer founded
the American Unity Fund, an organization to increase gay marriage support
among Republicans. He came to believe that same-sex marriage would
reinforce the normative status of marriage. Singer argued that same-sex
marriage “fits very well within our framework of individual liberty and ourbelief that strong families make for a stronger society. . . . The institution of
marriage is in very bad shape in this country, yet gay and lesbian couples
want very much to be a part of it, to live as committed husbands and wives
with their children in traditional family units.”26
The mainstream same-sex advocacy organizations’ assimilationism has
represented same-sex couples wanting to marry as respectable and patriotic
middle-class citizens hoping to legally confirm their mutual love andcommitment. This has been a common phenomenon in US history amongminority groups demanding inclusion and equal treatment.27 The politics ofrespectability may have been effective, especially for relatively resourceful

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members of a minority group, in promoting their cause of inclusion.
According to a Pew report published in 2014, the percentage of people who
think homosexuality is sinful is higher than the percentage of people who
approve of same-sex marriage in all religious and racial groups.28 While
Americans’ acceptance of gayness itself is fragile, the same-sex marriage
campaign may have been effective in persuading Americans who havedifficulty in accepting gay people to at least respect their humanity.
But, this strategy has another aspect: it often strengthens the existing
institutions, policies, and customs that marginalize disadvantaged minorities.
As historian Lisa Duggan has remarked, by relying on the politics of identity
decoupled from socioeconomic structural issues, mainstream same-sex
marriage advocates have narrowed the meaning of equality or freedom so as
not to drastically change the systems or institutions.29 Mainstream advocates’
strategies for same-sex marriage have indeed been complicit in the neoliberalproject.

Marriage in the Age of Neoliberal GovernanceAs historian Nancy Cott has noted, from the colonial era until thenineteenth century, the traditional marriage of a patriarchal male breadwinnerand a subordinate female housekeeper was important for the state to govern
society through heads of households. But throughout the twentieth century,
the growth of state functions directly affecting the everyday life ofindividuals diminished the necessity for the state to govern in this manner.
This has led to post-second-wave feminism’s efforts to secure legal reforms
to equalize men and women in marriage and divorce and the“disestablishment” of the traditional marriage. This resulted in a situation inwhich the traditional model of marriage received less official support.
Sociologist Andrew Cherlin argued that contemporary American marriage
became “deinstitutionalized”: it became less an institution of patriarchal
control than a symbol of life achievement and the ultimate means offulfillment of emotion and identity for both partners. But, as Cott said, theconcept of marriage as a realm of privacy is not antithetical to the conceptof marriage as an institution for governance.30 When we discuss the historicalmeaning of the same-sex marriage movement, we should be reminded that,for several decades, neoliberal reform projects have tried, and to aconsiderable extent succeeded, to revive the function of marriage as an
institution of governance in place of state apparatuses.
Since the 1970s, both social conservatives and neoliberals have hoisted

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the banner of “family values,” just as Ronald Reagan put it in 1986: “Allthose aspects of civilized life that we most deeply cherish—freedom, therule of law, economic prosperity and opportunity . . . all these depend upon
the strength and integrity of the family.” Reagan emphasized not only
conservative Christian moralism but also the logic of neoliberal governance.
He lamented the decline of traditional marriage: “[The American family]
has lost authority to government rule writers. It has seen its central role in
the education of young people narrowed and distorted. And it’s been forced
to turn over to big government far too many of its own resources in the formof taxation.”31 For Reagan, the decline of marriage led to bigger government
while “family values” would make a contribution to the privatization of the
public sector. This logic has been shared by conservative defenders of
traditional exclusively heterosexual marriage. For example, a conservative
group of jurists argue that legalization of same-sex marriage would “further
erode marital norms, thrusting the state even more deeply into leading roles
for which it is poorly suited” such as “parent and discipliner to the orphaned”
or “provider to the neglected.” For these jurists, “as the family weakens, ourwelfare and correctional bureaucracies grow.”32
Neoliberal discourse and institutional reforms have been based on anassumption that marriage would solve problems such as poverty, teenage
delinquency, and social disorder. They have assumed that the cause ofindividuals’ poverty and social dysfunctions is their rejection of marriage,
not the curtailing of the public sector or a socioeconomic structure ofinequality. Conservative intellectual Charles Murray published The Losing
Ground in 1984, in which he argued that welfare was not the solution topoverty but rather that welfare was the cause of poverty by giving women,
especially black women, incentives to become single mothers dependent on
welfare. He assumed that the reason many women became single mothers
was a matter of their making morally wrong choices, and his logic was topenalize single mothers by withdrawing public assistance. He argued thefollowing in an article in the Wall Street Journal in1993:
To restore the rewards and penalties of marriage does not require social
engineering. Rather, it requires that the state stop interfering with thenatural forces that have done the job quite effectively for millennia. . . .
Throughout human history, a single woman with a small child has notbeen a viable economic unit . . . [and therefore it has not] been alegitimate social unit. . . . In large numbers, they must destroy thecommunity’s capacity to sustain itself. Mirabile dictu, communities

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everywhere have augmented the economic penalties of single
parenthood with severe social stigma.33
In Murray’s view, if governmental policy were to encourage marriage byrefusing welfare to single mothers, poverty would substantially decrease.
He assumes that the root cause of poverty is women’s choices to become
single mothers, not because of pressure from the state or the socioeconomic
structure but, rather, because of the poor policy of lenient welfare provision.
Murray-like antiwelfare logic was incorporated in the welfare reforms of
the 1990s. It aimed not to support poor families but to induce people tomarry and form more two-parent families to raise children and to penalize
those who deviated from the norm of a legally married two-parent family.
The Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of
1996, which abolished the Aid to Families with Dependent Children
program and installed the Temporary Assistance to Needy Families program,is typical of such a project. TANF limits the term of assistance to five years
at the maximum and forces single-mother applicants to participate in thelabor market. This system, often called “workfare,” in reality forces poor
single-mother applicants to become low-wage workers. Moreover, TANF
also strengthens the system of requiring biological fathers of welfare
applicants’ children to pay for child support. This means that not the state
but fathers are required to buttress child welfare programs. This system,
called “paternafare” by Anna Marie Smith, registers the biological fathersof welfare applicants’ children and forces them to pay the costs of childsupport, making it more difficult for the fathers to escape from cycles ofpoverty. This system, moreover, discourages single mothers from applying
for welfare if they fear revenge from the biological fathers of their children.34
The “Findings” section of the Personal Responsibility and Work
Opportunity Reconciliation Act embodies the logic of neoliberalism. It
delivers the message that responsibility for child welfare should be held notby the state but by the two-parent family, and that the cause of poverty andpoor child welfare is single mothers’ rejection of marriage. The act
proclaims, “Marriage is the foundation of a successful society,” “Marriage
is an essential institution of a successful society which promotes the interestsof children,” and “Promotion of responsible fatherhood and motherhood is
integral to successful child rearing and the well-being of children.” It
continues, “The negative consequences of an out-of-wedlock birth on themother, the child, the family and society” leads to children’s poor physicaland mental development, poverty, delinquency, and the future possibility ofThe Same-Sex Marriage Campaign in the Age of Neoliberalism

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dependence on welfare.35 The act is based on the assumption that the lack ofmarriage is the cause of poverty and social disorder, and places responsibility
on neither the socioeconomic structure nor governmental policies. It is as if
personal risk is determined by personal choices about marriage and poverty
a self-inflicted wound by those who reject marriage.
In the 2000s, a new movement emerged. The marriage movement,
advocated by various scholars, journalists, and commentators, deplored thedeclining marriage rate in the United States that had extended for three
decades and endeavored to promote legal marriage among Americans.
According to Linda Waite and Maggie Gallagher, two of the leading
ideologues of the movement, married couples have superior physical andmental health, economic conditions, and child welfare than unmarriedpeople: “Marriage is . . . an important public good. As marriage weakens,the costs are borne not only by individual children or families but by all of
us taxpayers, citizens, and neighbors. We all incur the cost of higher crime,
welfare, education and health-care expenditures, and in reduced security forour own marriage investments.”36 In the same year, the Institute for American
Values, a conservative think tank and Gallagher’s sponsor, collaborated
with other similar nonprofit organizations and launched “the marriage
movement,” by collecting signatures of politicians, commentators, activists,and scholars. Contradictory to the trend that many Americans “see marriage
as too personal to be a proper matter for public concern or intervention,” themovement’s statement declares that marriage is “a social institution” that“must be monitored and ordered for the public good.” According to thestatement, even an unhappy marriage is better than divorce for children’s
welfare because children “do better, on average, when they are raised bytheir own married parents.” Child rearing by divorced or unwed parents“create[s] substantial public costs, paid by taxpayers.” A decline in marriage
would increase “taxpayer costs” to meet the heightened demands of “crime,
drug abuse, education failure, chronic illness, child abuse, domestic
violence, and poverty” in the form of “welfare expenditure; increased
remedial and special education expenses; higher day-care subsidies” among
other problems. The marriage movement recommended several programs topromote marriage, from public educational campaigns to lectures andworkshops on marital relationship skills to legal reforms introducing the“covenant marriage” option.37
President George W. Bush’s initiative to promote marriage incorporated
the marriage movement’s proposals into his federal policy and strengthened
the “it’s not the public sector but marriage that is the solution to poverty”

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discourse. Initiating his pet policy of encouraging marriage by subsidizing
marriage counseling and coaching programs, Bush stated in 2002, “Statistics
tell us that children from two-parent families are less likely to end up inpoverty, drop out of school, become addicted to drugs, have a child out of
wedlock, suffer abuse, or become a violent criminals and end up in prison.
Building and preserving families are not always possible, I recognize that.
But they should always be our goal.”38 His policy program was to make theinstitution of marriage the solution to social problems by encouraging
people to marry and stay longer in marital relationships. The program’s
assumption was that marriage is purely a matter of free choice.
In the neoliberal project of marriage promotion, the institution of marriage
becomes a panacea for almost all major social problems. Its discourse on
marriage assumes that marriage is strictly in the realm of free choice andthat the poor are those who have chosen not to marry. In this discursive
configuration, the elitist-assimilationist strategy adopted by mainstreamsame-sex marriage advocacy organizations suggests that same-sex marriage
legalization would contribute to the neoliberal project of marriage as asolution to social ills.

Same-Sex Marriage Advocacy Contributing to Neoliberalism
In the light of the new meaning given to marriage in the neoliberal project,
we shall find that the discourse employed by mainstream same-sex advocacy
organizations not only complies with, but actively contributes to, neoliberalmarriage policy.
On a micropolitical level, same-sex marriage may be interpreted as an actof resistance to the hegemonic institution of heteronormative marriage.
Same-sex weddings conducted in a similar style to heterosexual weddings
in a state that prohibits same-sex legal marriage are charged with politicalmeaning, implicitly protesting the antigay legal marriage system. When gay
or lesbian couples attend marriage-promotion workshops designed for
opposite-sex marital couples, they might be subverting the program’sheteronormative assumptions.39 On a macro level, however, even theiractions of implicit protest would be incorporated into the neoliberal politics
of marriage as a panacea for social problems.
While same-sex advocacy organizations have emphasized that theirprimary reason to want the right of legal marriage is to confirm the love andcommitment of same-sex couples, they have also argued that one of themost important reasons gay and lesbian couples need the right to marry

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legally is that so many benefits would accrue to the couples. The HRC
insists that “many [gay and lesbian] parents want the right to marry because
they know it offers children a vital safety net and guarantees protections that
unmarried parents cannot provide,” and many same-sex couples need “theprotections all other [legally married] families are eligible to enjoy.” The
HRC enumerates the rights and benefits guaranteed to legally married
couples: hospital and nursing home visitation, Social Security benefits,
immigration of noncitizen partners, health insurance coverage, tax credits,
unpaid family leave rights, and pensions.40 Freedom to Marry alsoemphasizes the benefits and rights involved in legal marriage such as“medical decision-making for your partner and your children,” “parenting
and immigration rights,” and the “ability to pool resources to buy or transfer
property without adverse tax treatment.”41
These organizations, especially single-issue advocacy organizations suchas Freedom to Marry or Marriage Equality USA, have focused their claims
almost solely on getting access to the rights and benefits already existing for
married opposite-sex couples but not on expanding, or rather universalizing,
institutions of the safety net. They rarely take notice of issues such asuniversal health care, mandatory paid family leave,42 expansion of the childcare allowances, or affordable day-care services.
Furthermore, rather than demanding a universal safety net, manyorganizations, activists, and commentators lobbying for same-sex marriage
have stressed that it would contribute to the curtailment of public-sector
spending. Since the 1990s, gay rights advocacy has included a certain
number of conservatives—not social or religious conservatives in a narrow
sense but those showing strong allegiance to the principles of neoliberalism,
which means small government, privatization of formerly public sectors,
dominance of the free market, and self-help. Andrew Sullivan, one of theearliest conservative advocates of same-sex marriage, also confessed his
lifelong support for “lower taxes, less government spending, freer trade,freer markets, individual liberty, personal responsibility, and a strong
anticommunist foreign policy.”43 Also in the 1990s, several gay writers andcommentators, disappointed with left-leaning gay activism, launched theIndependent Gay Forum (IGF) and declared that its members would support
legal and social equality of gays and lesbians, and in exchange, they would“contribute to the creativity, robustness, and decency of our national life.”
The IGF also showed their “belief in the fundamental virtues of the Americansystem and its traditions of individual liberty, personal moral autonomy andresponsibility, and equality before the law” and in “a market economy, free

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discussion, and limited government.” Lastly, the IGF further insisted theiropposition to both antigay conservatives and progressive activists who
advocate “radical social change or restructuring of society.”44 Since the late
2000s, several neoliberal conservatives have promoted the cause of samesex marriage. For example, Log Cabin Republicans, a group of Republicans
advocating LGBT rights, also combines tenets of neoliberalism and LGBT
rights, including same-sex marriage, in their “About Us” statement: “Webelieve in limited government, strong national defense, free markets, lowtaxes, personal responsibility, and individual liberty. Log Cabin Republicans
represents an important part of the American family—taxpaying, hardworking people who proudly believe in this nation’s greatness. . . . We
believe equality for LGBT Americans is in the finest tradition of the
Republican Party.”45 These conservatives aim to detach the issue of samesex marriage from that of social or religious conservatism; they adhere to arigid concept of traditional marriage and represent it as compatible withneoliberal ideals.
For major gay marriage advocacy organizations and activists,
neoliberalism seems to legitimatize their cause. Freedom to Marry insiststhat Republicans could and should support same-sex marriage because it is“consistent with conservative values of limited government and individual
freedom.” The organization also argues that same-sex marriage “reduces
the size of government by, among other things, creating stability in the livesof same-sex couples, reducing their tax burden, and cutting their need forgovernment-run social services.”46 The HRC uses a similar logic: “Treatingsame-sex couples as families under law could even save taxpayers money
because marriage would require them to assume legal responsibility for
their joint living expenses and reduce their dependence on public assistanceprograms such as Medicaid, Temporary Assistance to Needy Families,
Supplemental Security Income disability payments, and food stamps.”47
Economist Mary L. V. Badgett and her colleagues at the Williams Institute,a think tank at the University of California, Los Angeles, Law School haveemphasized that legalizing same-sex marriage would boost the economy
and reduce public expenditures. For example, they estimated in 2006 that if
the state of Washington legalized same-sex marriage, its welfare expenditures
would be reduced by $300,000 to $2.1 million per year. According to theirreport, “spouses are obligated to provide for one another’s basic needs.
After marrying, a same-sex spouse’s income and assets will be included inassessing an individual’s eligibility for means-tested public benefits,
reducing the number of people eligible for such benefits.”48 Such discourse

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represents same-sex marriage as an institution of privately provided welfare
that will substitute for public welfare provisioning, thus furthering
retrenchment and privatization of the public sector.
Judges favoring same-sex marriage have well recognized this aspect ofmarriage. Judge Margaret Marshall of the Goodridge case argued in her
decision that marriage is the commonwealth’s key institution that “ensuresthat children and adults are cared for and supported whenever possible fromprivate rather than public funds.”49 In Hollingsworth v. Perry (2012), which
ruled that California’s Proposition 8 was unconstitutional, the majority
opinion, citing Mary V. L. Badgett’s testimony, stated that the ban on samesex marriage would “reduce same-sex couples’ income” and “make themmore likely to need and be eligible for those means-tested programs that arepaid for by the state.” In addition, according to the court, because unmarriedsame-sex couples would face more difficulty in obtaining health insurance
for their partners and children, there would “be more people who mightneed to sign up for the state’s sponsored health programs.” 50 Marriage
would not just improve the conditions of gay and lesbian couples but
contribute to curtailment of the public sector and its spending of taxpayers’
money.
So it seems natural that neoliberals would eventually welcome same-sex
marriage, if they could abandon their belief that the only normal family is
the traditional nuclear family with the husband as breadwinner and the wife
as housekeeper raising their children. Indeed, Charles Murray has dropped
his opposition to same-sex marriage. He addressed a meeting of Republicans
after Obama defeated Mitt Romney in the presidential election of 2012.
Murray said that one of the causes of the defeat might have been the
Republican Party’s strident opposition to same-sex marriage andrecommended that his audience accept it. He said that in the past he had
believed that “all they wanted [were] the wedding, and the party, and thehoneymoon—but not this long thing we call marriage.” Since then Murraysaid he had gradually changed his mind. He said, “We have acquired anumber of gay and lesbian friends,” and they are “excruciatingly responsible
parents.”51 He has come to welcome legally married same-sex couples whoraise children in “responsible” two-parent families. In the context ofneoliberal welfare reform, Republican proponents of same-sex marriage
such as Charles Murray and Paul Singer seek to promote further transferenceof welfare responsibility from the public sector to the institution of family
through the legalization of same-sex marriage.
Many professional associations support LGBT parents’ claim that gay

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and lesbian couples are as responsible parents as heterosexual couples andsupport legalization of same-sex marriage. The American Psychological
Association adopted a resolution in 2004 that stated that “research has
shown that the adjustment, development, and psychological well-being ofchildren is unrelated to parental sexual orientation and that the children of
lesbian and gay parents are as likely as those of heterosexual parents toflourish,” therefore supporting joint or second-parent adoptions of “children
being reared by same-sex couples.”52 This declaration compared same-sex
couples with heterosexual ones, not with single straight or gay parents.
The American Psychological Association’s official website in 2014
explicitly states that single parents cannot be as responsible as same-sex
couples: “Life in a single parent household . . . can be quite stressful for the
adult and the children. . . . The single parent may feel overwhelmed by the
responsibility of juggling caring for the children, maintaining a job, andkeeping up with the bills and household chores. And typically, the family’s
finances and resources are drastically reduced following the parents’breakup.”53 This opinion implies that the single parents’ precariousness isconditioned by their socioeconomic problems such as relatively lower
household income, difficulty in balancing work and domestic caretaking,and the like. The American Academy of Pediatrics published its policy
statement on gay parenting in 2013, and it states more plainly the importanceof two-parent child rearing and the implications for single-parent families.
If a child has two living and capable parents who choose to create apermanent bond by way of civil marriage, it is in the best interests of
their child(ren) that legal and social institutions allow and support
them to do so, irrespective of their sexual orientation. If two parents
are not available to the child, adoption or foster parenting remain
acceptable options to provide a loving home for a child and should beavailable without regard to the sexual orientation of the parent(s).54
According to this group of pediatricians, being adopted or fostered bysame-sex couples would be preferable to being raised by single gay or
straight parents.
These professional organizations’ statements on same-sex couples’
parenting ability and the predicament of single-parent families, however,assume that the context of parenting in contemporary America is set andcannot be changed. In other words, these arguments naturalize existingsocioeconomic structures and public institutions. Their affirmation of same-

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sex couples’ parenting is based on the premise that the existing social
structure and institutions are natural and not to be reformed. But this premise
itself naturalizes neoliberal governance.
The boundary for being a “responsible” parent has now been redrawn
between a married two-parent family and a single-parent household. In thisview, children’s welfare can be improved not by strengthening the safety net
provided by the public sector but by giving same-sex couples the right tomarry and encouraging them to share the tasks of child care through adoption
or foster parenting.55 At the same time, the neoliberal policy regarding childwelfare presumes that single parents, especially those of African American
descent, are “irresponsible,” which requires that they be under strict
supervision, interference, and punishment through direct state police power.
The state often arbitrarily deprives such people of their children, transferring
them to the foster care system. The foster care system, combined with apolicy of mass incarceration of black men, has driven many African
American households into an isolated and desolate status.56
In the neoliberal arrangement, the success of the campaign for elite or
economically secure same-sex couples to gain the right to legally marry andthen choose to marry and raise their children is concurrent with the loss of
freedom and privacy for those who have children but cannot afford to marrybecause of racial and class inequality. The same-sex marriage movement
has been complicit with the system, which regards those who cannot enjoy
the benefits of marriage as irresponsible and unable to manage themselves,
and thus punishes them.

Conclusion
Same-sex marriage advocacy organizations have been complicit withneoliberal politicians, commentators, and professionals in promoting thepolicy of privatizing and diminishing the public sector, transferring
responsibility for poverty and lack of well-being to those who are its very
victims, and legitimatizing this treatment with the discourse that marriage
would improve everything.
Neoliberal promoters of marriage, intentionally or unintentionally,
confuse the correlation between marriage and economic, physical, andmental well-being with a causal relationship, and thus justify their argumentthat choosing to marry would solve social problems. Is the choice not tomarry, however, truly the cause of poverty? Is marriage really a matter ofpurely free choice, and are the poor who reject marriage reaping what they

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have sowed when they find themselves in even more difficulty?
A close look at the mechanism of “marriage markets” in contemporary
America may well disconfirm such neoliberal assumptions about marriage.
The process of deindustrialization, accelerated by neoliberal free marketoriented policies since the 1960s, has produced two significant
transformations in the socioeconomic conditions of men and women. Dueto second-wave feminist reforms, many women have became more educatedand have benefitted from high-compensation employment, and an increasing
number of less-educated women have also participated in a labor market
opened by the commercialization of domestic service and caretaking, which
had previously been unpaid domestic work done by women. At the sametime, many working-class men lost their stable blue-collar jobs because of
the decline of manufacturing, and thus they became economically unstableand underemployed.57
The relative expansion of economic independence for women andincreasing economic inequality among men has triggered hierarchicalmarriage markets. While the marriage rate of highly paid women has
increased, with their marrying similarly high-status men, working-classwomen have come to refrain from marriage because they became afraid toassume liability for a poor partner with an unstable job status. For them,marriage has become a highly risky endeavor. They would rather keep theireconomic and legal independence than take on an unreliable male partner,even if this means raising their children alone. Statistically, African
American women, even the most highly educated and highly paid among
them, have become the least likely people to marry because of the lack ofacceptable black male partners due to serious poverty, underemployment,
and mass incarceration.58
These studies imply that it is not the rejection of marriage that causes
poverty but poverty that is the cause of the overall decline of marriage, andthis poverty is the product of socioeconomic structural transformations
brought about by neoliberal policies. This means that marriage-promotion
policies have been blaming the victims of structural inequality, and thisinequality is supported by neoliberal policies. Moreover, some studies showthat building marriage promotion into welfare reform has forced poor, lowwage single mothers to become dependent on underemployed partners,
worsening their already unstable economic condition.59 As sociologists
Dawne Moon and Jaye Cee Whitehead correctly note, the promotion of
marriage has scapegoated victimized individuals for the failure of institutions
through the illusion of marriage as a free choice based on love andThe Same-Sex Marriage Campaign in the Age of Neoliberalism

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commitment, making invisible the socioeconomic conditions of marriage as
an institution.60
Mainstream same-sex marriage advocates have been complicit in thisblaming-the-victim dynamics of the neoliberal marriage project. But it is
not fair to call gay and lesbian proponents of same-sex marriage the leading
victimizers, for they too have been victims of the heterosexist society.
Same-sex marriage may be one of the few realistic ways for gays andlesbians to improve their conditions and hedge their risks in neoliberal,
postindustrial America.61 Still, we have to pay attention to and criticallyinquire into the mechanism encouraging minority group leaders to conformto the very system that marginalizes them.

Notes
United States v. Windsor, 570 US (2013).
http://www.people-press.org/2013/03/20/growing-support-for-gay-marriage-changedminds-and-changing-demographics/.
3 Evan Wolfson, Why Marriage Matters: America, Equality, and Gay People’s Right
to Marry (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2004), 8.
4 Lambda Legal, “Five Key Reasons for Marriage Equality,” http://www.lambdalegal.
org/sites/default/files/publications/downloads/fs_five-key-reasons-for-marriageequality_1.pdf.
5 http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2013/01/21/inaugural-addresspresident-barack-obama.
6 Bostic v. Rainey, 970 F. Supp. 2d 456 (E.D. Va. 2014).
7 See, e.g., Richard D. Mohr, The Long Arc of Justice: Lesbian and Gay Marriage,
Equality, and Rights (New York: Columbia University Press, 2004); Daniel R. Pinello,
America’s Struggle for Same-Sex Marriage (New York: Cambridge University Press,
2006); Michael J. Klarman, From the Closet to the Altar: Courts, Backlash, and theStruggle for Same-Sex Marriage (New York: Oxford University Press, 2013); and Jason
Pierceson, Same-Sex Marriage in the United States: The Road to the Supreme Court(Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2013).
8 See, e.g., Nancy Polikoff, Beyond (Straight and Gay) Marriage: Valuing All Families
under the Law (Boston: Beacon Press, 2008).
9 See, e.g., David Harvey, A Brief History of Neoliberalism (New York: Oxford
University Press, 2005); and Raewyn Connell, “Understanding Neoliberalism,” inNeoliberalism and Everyday Life, ed. Susan Braedley and Meg Luxton (Montreal:
McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2010), 22–36.
10 John D’Emilio, Sexual Politics, Sexual Communities: The Making of a Homosexual
1
2

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Minority in the United States, 1940–1970, 2nd ed. (Chicago: University of Chicago
Press, 1998), chap. 12, quotation at 234.
11 Robert A. Padgug, “Gay Villain, Gay Hero: Homosexuality and the Social
Construction,” in Passion and Power: Sexuality in Politics, ed. Kathy Peiss, Christina
Simmons, and Robert Padgug (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1989), 293–313;
George Chauncey, Why Marriage? The History Shaping Today’s Debate (New York:
Basic Books, 2005), 40–51.
12 Chauncey, Why Marriage?, 95–98, 105–11.
13 Andrew Sullivan, “Here Comes the Groom,” New Republic, August 28, 1989, 21–22.
14 Ibid., 22.
15 Andrew Sullivan, “Why Gay Marriage Is Good for America,” Newsweek, February
19, 2011, http://www.newsweek.com/andrew-sullivan-why-gay-marriage-good-america-68453.
16 Freedom to Marry, “Why Marriage?,” http://freemarry.3cdn.net/cbc09f6fdcf8f77f5f_
2wm6boi63.pdf.
17 Freedom to Marry, “Moving Marriage Forward,” http://freemarry.3cdn.net/
cc86bd386cbe909dcd_z8m6bup0w.pdf.
18 Lambda Legal, “Five Key Reasons.”
19 Third Way, “How to Change Your Public Position on Marriage,” http://content.
thirdway.org/publications/503/Third_Way_Talking_Points_-_How_to_Change_Your_
Public_Position_on_Marriage.pdf; and Third Way, “Commitment: The Answer to theMiddle’s Questions on Marriage for Gay Couples,” November 2011, http://content.
thirdway.org/publications/463/Third_Way_Report_-_Commitment_The_Answer_to_
the_Middle_s_Questions_on_Marriage_for_Gay_Couples_-_OUTSIDE_UPDATED.
pdf.
20 Andrew Sullivan, “The End of Gay Culture: Assimilation and Its Meaning,” New
Republic, October 24, 2005, http://www.newrepublic.com/article/politics/the-end-gayculture.
21 Pinello, America’s Struggle, 41–42; Goodridge v. Department of Public Health, 440
Mass. 309 (2003).
22 John Greaney in Goodridge v. Department of Public Health.
23 On judges’ negative attitudes toward poor people, see Michele Neitz, “Socioeconomic
Bias in the Judiciary,” Cleveland State Law Review 61 (2013): 137–65. The socioeconomic
biases at times have encouraged judges to take more liberal stances on cultural issues
than average public opinion. Klarman, From Closet to Altar, 169–72.
24 ABCNews, Transcript: Robin Roberts Interview with President Obama, http://
abcnews.go.com/Politics/transcript-robin-roberts-abc-news-interview-president-obama/
story?id=3D16316043.
25 Human Rights Campaign, Answers to Questions about Marriage Equality (NewThe Same-Sex Marriage Campaign in the Age of Neoliberalism

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York: Human Rights Campaign Foundation, 2009), 12.
26 “Pushing the GOP to Support Gay Rights,” New York Times, April 27, 2013, A10.
27 For an example of black middle-class female activists at the turn of the twentiethcentury, see Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham, Righteous Discontent: The Women’s
Movement in the Black Baptist Church, 1880–1920 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University
Press, 1993), chap. 7.
28 Pew Research Center, “Public Sees Religion’s Influence Waning: Growing Appetite
for Religion in Politics,” 33–35, http://www.pewforum.org/files/2014/09/Religion-andPolitics-14-09-22-report.pdf.
29 Lisa Duggan, The Twilight of Equality? Neoliberalism, Cultural Politics, and the
Attack on Democracy (Boston: Beacon Press, 2003), chap. 3.
30 Nancy Cott, Public Vows: A History of Marriage and the Nation (Cambridge, MA:
Harvard University Press, 2000), chap. 9; and Andrew Cherlin, The Marriage-GoRound: The State of Marriage and the Family in America Today (New York: Vintage,2010).
31 Ronald Reagan, “Radio Address to the Nation on Family Values,” December 20,
1986, http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=3D36826.
32 Sherif Girgis, Ryan T. Anderson, and Robert P. George, What Is Marriage? Man and
Woman: A Defense (New York: Encounter Books, 2012), 9.
33 Charles Murray, The Losing Ground: American Social Policy, 1950–1980 (NewYork: Basic Books, 1984); and Charles Murray, “The Coming White Underclass,” WallStreet Journal, October 29, 1993, A14.
34 Anna Marie Smith, Welfare Reform and Sexual Regulation (New York: Cambridge
University Press, 2007).
35 http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/BILLS-104hr3734enr/pdf/BILLS-104hr3734enr.
pdf.
36 Linda J. Waite and Maggie Gallagher, The Case for Marriage: Why Married People
Are Happier, Healthier, and Better Off Financially (New York: Broadway Books, 2000),
186.
37 The Marriage Movement: A Statement of Principles (New York: Institute for
American Values, 2000).
38 http://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/news/releases/2002/02/20020226-11.
html.
39 Kathleen E. Hull, Same-Sex Marriage: The Cultural Politics of Love and Law (NewYork: Cambridge University Press, 2006); Melanie Heath, “State of Our Unions:
Marriage Promotion and the Contested Power of Heterosexuality,” Gender and Society
23 (2009): 27–48.
40 Human Rights Campaign, Answers to Questions, 3–4.
41 Freedom to Marry, “Why Marriage?”

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The United States is the only nation among the OECD countries that has no law
requiring employers to provide their employee paid maternity or parental leave. Tara
Siegel Bernard, “In Paid Family Leave, US Trails Most of the Globe,” New York Times,
February 23, 2013, B1.
43 Andrew Sullivan, The Conservative Mind: Fundamentalism, Freedom, and the
Future of the Right (New York: Harper Perennial, 2006), 2.
44 http://igfculturewatch.com/about/.
45 Log Cabin Republicans, “What We Believe,” http://www.logcabin.org/about-us/.
46 Freedom to Marry, “Republicans and the Freedom to Marry,” http://www.imengaged.
org/pdfs/Republicans.pdf.
47 Human Rights Campaign, Answers to Questions, 15.
48 M. V. Lee Badgett, R. Bradley Sears, Elizabeth Kukura, and Holning S. Lau, “TheImpact on Washington’s Budget of Allowing Same-Sex Couples to Marry,” June 2006,
http://williamsinstitute.law.ucla.edu/wp-content/uploads/Badgett-Sears-Kukura-LauWashington-Econ-Study-June-20061.pdf.
49 Goodridge v. Department of Public Health.
50 Hollingsworth v. Perry, 570 US (2012).
51 Jane Mayer, “Charles Murray’s Gay-Marriage Surprise,” New Yorker, March 15,
2013, http://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/charles-murrays-gay-marriage-surprise.
52 American
Psychological Association Council of Representatives, “Sexual
Orientation, Parents, and Children,” resolution adopted July 28 and 30, 2004, http://
www.apa.org/about/policy/parenting.aspx.
53 American Psychological Association, “Single Parenting and Today’s Family,” http://
www.apa.org/helpcenter/single-parent.aspx.
54 American Academy of Pediatrics, “Policy Statement: Promoting the Well-Being ofChildren Whose Parents Are Gay or Lesbian,” Pediatrics 131 (2013): 827.
55 See Laura Briggs, Somebody’s Children: The Politics of Transracial andTransnational Adoption (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2012), chap. 7.
56 Dorothy E. Roberts, “Prison, Foster Care, and the Systemic Punishment of Black
Mothers,” UCLA Law Review 59 (2012): 1474–1500. On mass incarceration, seeMichelle Alexander, The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness(New York: New Press, 2012).
57 Susan Thistle, From Marriage to the Market: The Transformation of Women’s Livesand Work (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2006). Urban black working-classmen were most severely damaged by deindustrialization. See William Julius Wilson,
When Work Disappears: The World of the New Urban Poor (New York: Vintage, 1997).
58 June Carbone and Naomi Cahn, Marriage Markets: How Inequality Is Remaking theAmerican Family (New York: Oxford University Press, 2014). On black women, see
Ralph Richard Banks, Is Marriage for White People? How the African American
42

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Marriage Decline Affects Everyone (New York: Dutton, 2011).
59 Jill Weigt, “ ‘I Feel Like It’s a Heavier Burden. . . ’: The Gendered Contours of
Heterosexual Partnering after Welfare Reform,” Gender and Society 24 (2010): 565–90.
60 Dawne Moon and Jaye Cee Whitehead, “Marrying for America,” in Fragile Families
and the Marriage Agenda, ed. Lori Kowaleski-Jones and Nicholas H. Wolfinger (NewYork: Springer, 2006), 23–45.
61 Jay Cee Whitehead, The Nuptial Deal: Same-Sex Marriage and Neo-Liberal
Governance (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2012).