Extract

CRAIG GINGRICH-PHILBROOK AND JONATHAN M. GRAY

Craig: Remember that time we got our civil union license and the clerk, finishing up the paper work, said, “See? Painless.”? His confident emphasis and, what seemed to me, genuine desire to confirm us meant well. I still wanted to say, “Oh sure, painless, except for the centuries of struggle.” But if my suspicion of his ease pointed right, at conservative norms preaching against marriage equality, I knew we left that office to go out among friends and students on the left, preaching against marriage equality with a similar dehumanizing viciousness, presuming to know our minds and the best use of our one and only lives. Looking back, I’d say that, in a way, the pain had only just begun. I grew up in the shadow of the Carpenters. Cue the song.

From Against Equality to a generation of students who weren’t even alive when Dan White killed Harvey Milk and George Moscone, I often feel submerged in a sea of people missing a visceral sense memory of what marriage inequality cost so many in the depths of the plague years. Against Equality describes itself as

an online archive, publishing, and arts collective focused on critiquing mainstream gay and lesbian politics. As queer thinkers, writers and artists, we are committed to dislodging the centrality of equality rhetoric and challenging the demand for inclusion in the institution of marriage, the US military, and the prison industrial complex...