This paper examines the rise of relationship recognition and more recently the opening of marriage as a core goal of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) rights movements in western countries and increasingly beyond. The fact that it now seems natural for LGBT activists to focus on partnership issues says a great deal about the success of these policy campaigns. Thirty years ago, however, legal relationship recognition was not on the agendas of most LGBT rights groups in western countries, let alone that of elected policy officials. Indeed many sexuality and gay liberation activists of the era expressed little interest in lobbying for piecemeal legal change and had a particular contempt for campaigns aimed at ‘aping’ bourgeoisie and oppressive institutions like marriage. What changed?
I argue that this dramatic change in movement goals and policy outcomes has been catalyzed by a process of international learning that has helped to define state relationship recognition as a human right. LGBT activists have also learned the incredible symbolic value that state recognition of same-sex couples, and especially civil marriage, brings the movement. This policy success, which began in Western Europe and has diffused unevenly to other regions of the world, has led—regrettably I argue—to a narrowing of debate both about the desirability of relationship recognition for sexuality movements and about the proper forms of state relationship recognition more broadly. Increasingly marriage has come to be seen by LGBT movements and policymakers as the only legitimate way to bring same-sex couples equality. This focus on opening marriage has curtailed a discourse about and experimentation with alternative forms of relationship recognition and a more dramatic pluralisation of family policy goals.
