From Stonewall to the Suburbs? Toward a Political Economy of Sexuality

Abstract

INTRODUCTION In their articles,1 Carlos Ball and Sonia Katyal step back from heat of moment to place two recent United States court cases concerning rights of minorities - Goodridge v. Department of Public Health2 and Lawrence v. Texas3 - into a broader perspective. Ball takes up dimension of time. Comparing Massachusetts Supreme Court's decision in Goodridge to U.S. Supreme Court's decision in Brown v. Board of Education,4 he examines phenomenon of social and legal backlash against controversial judicial opinions in arena of civil rights, and reminds us backlash is foreseeable, for civil rights struggle in United States typically consists of of heartening progress followed by instances of discouraging setbacks.5 Katyal takes up dimension of space, examining possible implications of U.S. Supreme Court's decision in Lawrence for civil rights struggles of minorities in post-colonial nations, India in particular. Both Ball and Katyal are cautiously optimistic. Ball wants gay rights advocates not to despair over recent state and federal legislative backlash against same-sex marriage, but to move struggle from courts to culture, in order to persuade straight Americans prohibitions on same-sex marriage are unacceptable restrictions on equality.6 Taking long view, Ball argues despite current backlash, same-sex marriage advocates have won more than they have lost.7 Adopting intonations of civil rights movement, he exhorts gay and lesbian activists to win hearts and minds of straight Americans,8 and, in last line of his article, insists that backlash can be overcome.9 Katyal, too, speaks with hope. She points out Lawrence Court did not grant protection to a minority, but rather spoke in terms of privacy and liberty, principles are broadly applicable to all persons.10 For Katyal, Court in Lawrence quietly moved away from equality-based, analogical identity reasoning gay and lesbian activists have often been pressured into - We are just like black Just like straight people! - and toward a substantive vision of self-determination, which Katyal names sexual sovereignty.11 Though Katyal acknowledges flaws of Lawrence - above all its connection of sovereignty to home, a site many feminist/queer activists and theorists view as a place of danger rather than security12 - she nonetheless wishes to celebrate Lawrence as an anti-essentialist triumph.13 Both articles are rich and thought-provoking, and there is much to praise in them. I think Ball and Katyal are right to place these court decisions in a larger context of civil rights struggle across both time and space. It is appropriate, for instance, to discuss these decisions as inseparable from questions of racial subordination and postcolonial struggle.14 It is also always appropriate to identify and celebrate openings of possibility and moments of hope. Commentary necessitates critique, however, and, in my role as commentator on these papers, I mean to offer a caution - not as a substitute but as a supplement to posture of hope and celebration. I argue a usefully corrective lens through which to see Brown, Lawrence, and Goodridge is lens of political economy. This lens enables us to see different stories with different lessons than ones Ball and Katyal extract. From a political economy perspective, Brown tells a story of role law plays in accomplishing, to use Re va Siegel' s apt phrase, preservation-throughtransformation.15 Through this lens, both Goodridge and Lawrence maybe seen as beacons of hope (as they surely are), but they can also be seen as invitations to what Andrew Sullivan calls (though to him it's a good, if slightly bittersweet, thing) the end of gay culture:16 end, is to say, of a queer movement means anything other than reconsolidation of preexisting relations of privilege and subordination. …

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