An enormous amount of energy is going in what seems like a million different directions, and what infuses that energy is more and more varied, more unique to each individual activist. Take performance artist Tim Miller, for example, who some would see as the unlikeliest same-sex marriage activist. An unabashed AIDS firebrand and onetime ACT UP member, Miller was the center of national attention in the late '80s as a preeminent sex radical, one of four artists whose National Endowment for the Arts funding was cut off in a censorship campaign spearheaded by Sen. Jesse Helms. It was the standard lefty, liberationist bill of fare. And, of course, there's a lot of sense in that.
Marriage is open to our critique.
Miller is referring to the fact that his boyfriend of six years, Australian Alistair McCartney, living here on a student visa, may soon be deported by the United States. If they were a heterosexual couple, they could marry, and McCartney would immediately attain citizenship. Their plight is the subject of Miller's latest work, Glory Box, but he readily acknowledges that some people might not be so excited about the marriage issue simply because it doesn't affect them in the intensely personal way it affects him. As the experiences that move activists have become more diverse, so too have the methods they employ. Marriage activism, for example, is about writing legislators, appearing in court, arguing with family members, and, of course, working the Internet.