Almost three and a half years ago I ran the following post about what Rachel Kranz’s novel 2000 novel Leaps of Faith has to say about same sex marriage. At the time of the post, same-sex marriage was just about to be defeated in a Maine referendum so the story of two men wrestling with whether to have a commitment ceremony was very timely.
Since then, of course, things have changed dramatically. America’s sentiments towards same sex marriage have shifted dramatically and now nine states allow it. Furthermore, many anticipate favorable rulings from the Supreme Court, which is hearing a pair of cases this week, including one today. Will progress render Rachel’s book irrelevant on this subject?
I don’t think so. That’s because there are issues that the marriage debate have swept aside which are still very much alive. I was reminded of this recently while listening to MSNBC talk show host Melissa Harris-Perry wonder why we are so focused on same sex marriage when there are seemingly more pressing matters to attend to. After all, members of the GLBT community still experience blatant, and legal, discrimination in much of the country.
Rachel’s book also questions why we are prioritizing same sex marriage. Her novel does what a good novel does,which is put the issues in play rather than seeking to resolve them.
Same Sex Marriage, a Leap of Faith (originally posted 11/2/09)
My novelist friend Rachel Kranz is currently in Maine campaigning with gay friends to save same-sex marriage against attempts to ban it. I mention this because her first novel, Leaps of Faith, is the most intelligent fictional exploration of same-sex marriage that I know.
Among the differences between politics and fiction is the fact that fiction can acknowledge the complexity of an issue whereas politics must reduce the issue to a specific set of actions. In Leaps of Faith one sees two gay men debating the worth of marriage and whether one should push for it and (since they can’t legally get married) come up with one’s own version of it.
Rachel’s novel is a sprawling work about people trying to break out of their narrow confines and redefine what is possible, for themselves and for society as a whole. In addition to the gay couple there’s a union organizer in a biracial relationship trying to organize the workers at a New York university and a director in a cooperative theater group directing an experimental play. The stories intersect and each character tells his or her own story.
The gay couple are named Flip and Warren. Flip is a sassy (and often very funny) actor, Warren a sensitive and somewhat conservative psychic. Warren wants some kind of formal commitment to their relationship, Flip isn’t so sure.
Flip opens the book and may be the most distinctive voice in it. In the following scene, he is talking with his friend Mario at a gathering of gays and lesbians discussing same sex marriage. He has just whispered to Mario that he doesn’t see the point of same sex marriage:
“The point?” says Mario, his voice rising. “The point is to have some kind of stability in your life! The point is to have some kind of faith that your relationship is going to last! That it’s not just—you know, what they’re always saying about us. That it’s not just sex. That it’s not just—hedonism.”
Well, there’s a word. But I say, although admittedly my respect might be wearing a bit thin, “Yeah, but Mario. You can have those things without being married. I mean, even most straight people don’t get married. Well, OK, actually most of them do get married. But most of them get divorced.”
“But when it does work for them, they’re together for years and years,” Mario says. “And why? Because the society supports them, it supports their relationship. Not just economically, but you know. Emotionally.”
“How does it support them?” I say. “By turning them into nice little husbands and wives with their lives all mapped out for them? By giving them some rules about not fooling around and earning a living that have nothing to do with the actual people involved? By making them feel like failures if they don’t get married?”
And then, when others in the discussion group start mentioning things like health insurance, Social Security, property rights, inheritance, child custody, and next of kin hospital rights, Flips says,
“Actually, I think those are the wrong questions. Because if we want those things, there are others ways to get them. Or there should be. So the question isn’t why can’t we get married so we can have those things. The question is, why do you have to get married to have them.”
But the conversation doesn’t end there because Warren, for reasons he can’t entirely articulate, wants to get married. At one point they have the following exchange:
“Well, we don’t have to call it marriage,” Warren says. “We can call it something else. A commitment ceremony.”
“God, that’s worse. It’s so, ‘Oh, we’re gay and we’re not allowed to get married, so let’s make up some really cute name to disguise the fact.”
They never do figure out what to call the wedding/commitment ceremony. Other options are “union,” “initiation into adulthood,” “party,” and even “abduction.” Their invitation reads, “Please come join us at our wedding—or whatever we decide to call it.” As Flip’s sister explains to her boyfriend,
“I think the confusion over the name comes from some sort of debate the two of them are having, over whether they’re doing this totally new thing, which would probably be Flip’s preference, or if they actually are just fulfilling a totally traditional role that has historically been denied to gay people, which I would guess is what Warren wants. Not that he’d ever put it like that, but I think there’s something about the tradition that he does like. Since he, of course, isn’t aware, or maybe, given his situation, just doesn’t care that weddings have traditionally been the ceremonies in which the daughter is handed over from the father to a husband in exchange for some kind of price.”
One reason Warren wants to get married is because, as he says, their relationship feels so fragile. He says he wants to declare their relationship in public “so I can’t ever take it back.”
Flip finally comes around, although he does so in his own “flip” way. Here are the vows he imagines delivering: “I, Flip Philip Bernard Terence Zombrowski, love you, Warren Baird Huddleston, with all my heart, and all my mind, and all my spirit, and all my soul. And all my body, too, I suppose. And I intend to love you, and honor you, and cherish you, and make you happy, and make you miserable, for the rest of my life or the rest of your life, whichever comes first, and if we’re lucky, they’ll both come at the exact same time, even though I’m so much younger than you” [13 years].
Whether marriage is altogether a positive institution, Rachel is not sure. Flip captures her ambivalence. Regardless of her own views, however, she believes couples who want to get married should be able to do so, regardless of their sexual orientation, which is why she’s in Maine. Her novel just captures other dimensions of the issue.
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I’ll just add to my 2009 post that one of Harris-Perry guests, while agreeing that job discrimination is a more pressing issue than marriage, argued that sometimes, to make social change happen, progressives have to work within conservative institutions. After all, there’s a possibility of bipartisan support there. That’s why a significant same-sex victory came first in the repeal of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, just as significant African American civil rights progress also occurred in the military. You start where there’s an opening and move on from there.
