Gay Marriage: Feigning Dissent

Suzanne Moore takes on gay marriage in her Guardian column today.
As often with Moore I sort of agree with the main thrust of her argument; being "gay-friendly" may have become "the key signifier of modernity", but conservatives are only comfortable with homosexuality which mirrors heterosexuality.
"Equality surely means more than a lifetime of monotonous monogamy."
Yes, fine, ok, agreed.
Moore doesn't use the phrase, but the piece is flagged up by The Guardian online as being about "The New Gay Conservatism".
What hyperbolex!
Whenever I see the media announcing "The New Something Or Other" - as with when they announce "The Death Of Something Or Other" - I reach for my revolver.
And as often happens with Moore she rather ruins things with some embarrassing pseudo-radical drivel.
Moore quotes Cameron; "I support gay marriage because I am a Conservative."
She says "this is exactly why I don't "support" gay marriage."
Which is the politics of the primary school playground.
Like some gay journalists - often the most reactionary ones - she thinks taking an oppositional stance on an issue like gay marriage has a magical power to instantly make her a radical.
Poof!
There's lots of 80s post modern guff about how gay identity has become "something of a strait jacket".
Hey, maybe we're all bisexual really...
She backs this up by using clever sounding Po Mo words like "narrative" and "discourse", and by putting things in ironic quotation marks ("They then must face up to who they "really" are...")
She even uses that most laughable word in the post structuralist's dictionary; "transgression" - the sure sign of a phoney feigning dissent.
Suzanne Moore's "conclusion" is confused and confusing;
"State-endorsed coupling for all is as conservative as they come! The dulling of a gay dream... any progressive would not waste time arguing the case for gay marriage. Quite the opposite. Instead, the right to civil partnerships should be extended to everyone."
Eh?
What are civil partnerships if not "state-endorsed coupling"?
Tacked on the end of her article is a small piece by Peter Tatchell arguing the opposite.
It's rare to get a counter-argument printed as a postscript - a sign perhaps that The Guardian senses she's talking shit?
Tatchell answers a question Moore asks but doesn't answer; "If two people want to publicly affirm their love and have a celebration, why is a civil partnership ceremony not good enough? What exactly is missing here?"
Tatchell writes; "Personally, I don't like marriage. I share the feminist critique of its history of sexism and patriarchy. I would not want to get married. But as a democrat and human rights defender, I support the right of others to marry. This is a simple issue of equality. The ban on same-sex marriage is discrimination and discrimination is wrong, full stop."
This point should be as obvious as rain, but Moore was too busy posturing to see it.