asterick
The Cell Family
The nuclear family needs to
be examined. it needs to be picked up, held close to the face and
looked at so that all its surface structures and veins are clearly
seen.
then it needs to be placed under a microscope, where its atomic elements
will be exposed.
i believe that for persons whose sexual preferences* are
more toward the gay/lesbian/queer/
transgendered/bi
sexual end of the spectrum, the family
must be removed from the nucleus that the Victorian bourgeois placed it in.
the family as we need it to be exists
in the protoplasm. in the larger context of the metaphor itself -- in
the cell.
in this larger space, i believe, we can conceive a new kind of family --
rather than continuing to wait in vain for the hetero-normative world
to decide we have the right
to marriage as they understand it. we cannot wait for the legal convolutions
of the Hawaii gay marriage case. we cannot wait for the
supreme court. and we certainly cannot wait for congress. queer people
must assert the right to marry by getting married.
the cell family is an heuretic response to the need for a new kind of family and a fresh commitment ceremony to go with it. a cell family is the joining of two couples, legally and ceremonially for life. one is a pair of gay men, the other a pair of lesbians. the couples could cross-marry in the eyes of the state and thereby garner all the legal rights and benefits of a heterosexual family. obviously, the founding of this type of family would take a significant amount of pre-planning -- perhaps the writing of a formal covenant for the four participants as well as the writing of a new method of sanctification. this is, i believe, a truly radical position: subverting the system from within; using its own structures to create a completely new type of family.
in a back issue of Out,Brad Gooch describes the type of life i'm promoting: "In Falls Church, Virginia, one household consists of a gay male couple living downstairs, a lesbian couple living upstairs, and their children, conceived together by artificial insemination, running between floors." the aim of the site that you are reading/surfing is to valorize this lifestyle in a way that is free of as much propaganda as possible, to interact with others about the unique challenges and rewards it poses, and to provide a medium through which interested parties can build a community.
some may find the idea of committing to three people rather than just one incredibly daunting. i, personally, am attracted to the challenge not only of multiple commitments (and commitments varying in kind and degree), but the the challenge of gay men and lesbians learning to live together, which will be no small challenge considering the degree to which we often repel one another.
it took me years to accept that i was exclusively attracted to persons of the same sex/gender. but accepting this fact doesn't mean i don't want people of the opposite sex/gender around. just because i don't want to have sex with someone of the opposite sex/gender doesn't mean i don't want someone of the opposite sex/gender in the kitchen when i get up for a glass of water in the middle of the night. and it doesn't mean that i don't want members of the opposite sex/gender involved in the raising of my children -- in fact i almost feel it is necessary. no matter how societally constructed gender may be, it is a structure we must, for the time being at least, work with. and i believe a child who is raised in a family of both women and men will be better able to do so.
