Where is the queer critique of same-sex marriage in South Africa?

Abstract

ABSTRACTThis article argues for the necessity of a queer anti-homophobic critique of same-sex marriage in the South African context. The literature on same-sex marriage in South Africa before and after the passing of the Civil Union Act 2006, while acknowledging queer critique, resolves such critique in favour of the ‘right’ to marry. From a queer point of view, same-sex marriage is problematic because it renews the distinctions between moral and immoral, it is antithetical to the politics of the gay and lesbian movement, it ‘undoes’ a long history of feminist research where it is argued that marriage is patriarchal and oppressive and finally, it cannot transform the exclusionary nature of marriage. I use Jane Bennett’s ‘“Solemnis(ing) beginnings”: Theories of same-sex marriage in the USA and South Africa’ (2015) as evidence of the most recent example of this point of view. In the course of my critique of Bennett’s article, I will also refer to all of the published literature on the same-sex marriage debate in South Africa. I argue that the opportunity to incorporate queer critiques of same-sex marriage might have been lost 12 years ago but there is no reason why we cannot have these conversations now. The aim of this article is to ignite such a conversation.