The debate about same-sex marriage has polarised not only the straight community but also the gay and lesbian community. Same-sex marriage provides the extension of rights available to heterosexual couples to those previously excluded because of discrimination and prejudice and so appears, at first, an unquestionable good from a progressive view-point. Yet many radical gays and lesbians reject marriage, arguing that it imposes a heterosexual institution on a queer lifestyle thereby constraining the difference signified by homosexuality. Moreover, they argue, marriage, as an institution that regulates both citizenship and kinship relations, functions as a means of excluding the alien, the other, the foreigner and as a mechanism for normalising family within traditional structures. On the other hand, many gay men and lesbians welcome marriage, rejoicing in the opportunity to publicly declare their love and embracing the legal and economic benefits it bestows – including, depending on the particularities of each nation's legal framework, citizenship rights, access to adoption and fertility services, and tax, inheritance, health and executorial benefits. (While different countries have adopted varying frameworks and terminologies, civil unions, civil partnerships, etc., I use the term same-sex marriage here to refer to the broad concept rather than to the details of these varying legal constructions.)

The debate among queers has been fraught and complex but can perhaps be most succinctly represented as a debate between the right to equality and the right to express queer difference. The USA TV series Queer as Folk encapsulates this debate in the representation of Michael and Ben’s marriage in Toronto while on an AIDS fundraising ‘Liberty’ bicycle ride.