Deborah Lipp

Saturday was Blog Against Heteronormativity Day. I didn’t participate. I live with a great many complex thoughts about gender and orientation, and I suppose if I had simply sat and written some thoughts, it would have turned into a decent essay. But I was put off by the big, self-important neologism, and a little put off by all these blogosphere Day designations as well. Also, I’m not comfortable with all this defining; I’m not convinced that gay, straight, and bi are enough categories, or the right categories.

So, last night, I saw the wonderful movie The Station Agent. In it, a dwarf (Peter Dinklage) struggles to be treated as himself, and not as an oddity. Fin (Dinklage) says “It’s funny how people see me and treat me, since I’m really just a simple, boring person.”

So I realize; it’s not heteronormativity, it’s normativity. It’s the whole idea of there being a norm and a non-norm. Of the right group and the wrong group. And that’s so ingrained that whenever anyone is different, we feel completely entitled to stare, to joke, to point. Normativity is so important that we actually argue about whether even acknowledging difference undermines acceptance of difference; “until the color of a man’s skin is of no more significance than the color of his eyes.” Or not. Are we celebrating difference, or calling attention to difference? Does calling attention to difference inherently marginalize difference? Is using modifiers a sign of lesser status (i.e. gay marriage vs. marriage, dwarf actor vs. actor).

All of these questions are rooted in normativity. And normativity is rooted in monotheism, and its by-product, monoculture. Monoculture; the idea that if there is only one good that all else is evil (or at least suspect). Monotheism tells us that there is one God, and all other gods are “false,” or demons, or delusions. That one God has one Law, one Rule, one Right Way. Other ways are wrong, in violation, and misguided. From the ideas of one God and one Good come ideas about everything we see; we want everything to fit into the One and Only model. One way to love and marry. One way to reproduce.

The Dobsons and Falwells of the world are right when they see pluralism itself as a threat. Pluralism is the opposite of monoculture; it sees many ways and many goods. And if God doesn’t hold the monopoly on how to live, they fear a loosening of their hold on their minions.

(One wonders how wonderful they think their God truly is, if he will only have followers without competition. But this is not to run down that God, only certain of his purported followers.)

Polytheism, with many gods, allows the possibility of pluralism, of many goods, many rights, many ways. In other words, many normatives. As Isaac said in Drawing Down the Moon:

“monotheistic religions inevitably promote bigotry and chauvinism of all sorts, but let us not forget that polytheistic cultures have also produced chauvinistic behavior…However, while monotheists are required to be bigots, for polytheists, bigotry is merely an exciting option.”

Fundamentally, I believe that a world in which gay marriage is not a problem is also a world in which fewer people will point and shout at dwarfs.