Document Type
Article
Publication Title
Family Law Quarterly
Publication Date
2022
Volume
55(3)
First Page
311
Abstract
(Excerpt)
Paula Ettelbrick fought for us.
As a pragmatic and radical litigator, Ettelbrick spent years trying to use a frequently uncomprehending and often outright hostile court system to protect LGBTQ+ Americans. While her work took her into the many areas of law that touched queer lives, a special focus and passion of her advocacy was reserved for queer families.
Paula also tried to warn us.
In the absence of legal recognition for the families we construct, queer lives are rendered not just invisible but virtually nonexistent; we become legal strangers to our loved ones in ways that violently obliterate our lived realities.
Ettelbrick wanted the law to recognize queer lives as they were actually experienced. In Alison D. v. Virginia M., Ettelbrick (unsuccessfully) urged New York courts to respect the parenting relationship formed between a mother and the child she had been raising with her former female partner. In seeking visitation for the petitioner, who was not a biological or adoptive parent, Ettelbrick urged the courts to see and acknowledge the reality of same-sex parents operating in a legal system in which only one of them was deemed an actual mother.
But achieving legal recognition often carries the costs of enforced normativity. Ettelbrick was rightly adamant that we seek legal change thoughtfully, with deep comprehension of what “winning” some of those fights might entail. In Since When Is Marriage a Path to Liberation?, one of the early and most notable articulations of the case against same-sex marriage, Ettelbrick urged those interested in gay liberation to consider the downsides of seeking marriage. One of the important costs, Ettelbrick argued, was that we would lose the radical and creative ways of living that had emerged outside of marriage.
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©2022. Published in Family Law Quarterly, Vol. 55, Number 3, 2021-2022, by the American Bar Association. Reproduced with permission. All rights reserved. This information or any portion thereof may not be copied or disseminated in any form or by any means or stored in an electronic database or retrieval system without the express written consent of the American Bar Association or the copyright holder.