The Bourgeois Gay.

“Same-sex marriage on trial again as California ban goes to federal court.”

This news item undoubtedly has eager-to-criticize third-wave academies scrambling for their pens to jot down some angry diatribes against marriage, its bourgeois implications, and its alleged “whiteness.” You can read their musings on the subject in Let’s Complain About Something Quarterly.

For the most part, no counter-argument from this ho-hum middle-class gay. Is marriage a bourgeois institution? Undoubtedly so, and yet I find this angle tiresome. It smacks of a sort of lazy approach to analysis that posits “authentic subversiveness” as the pot of gold at the end of an increasingly queerer rainbow. Progress narratives being what they are, we are inevitably left with “Person A is more subversive than Person B.” Yawn.

In postmodern crusades to claim the subversive (like this doozy here), simple facts often get shoved to the side so an up-and-coming “scholar” can hop on the critiquing bandwagon, destination “no one gives a shit.” Like the fact that the No on 8 campaign was just that–a defensive campaign, not a million dollar push to claim marriage but rather to avoid the legal discrimination of a minority group in the California constitution.

Between fighting discrimination in the courts to warding off the shrill cries of the angry academic, the bourgeois gay can’t win.

And dammit, I want my life to be full of win.