Now that gay civil marriage appears poised to become a reality in more and more states across the US, some homosexuals are starting to question whether they really want to be locked into the same nightmare that afflicts so many straight Americans.

Writing for the NY Times, Katherine Franke, a lesbian, asks whether gays ought to be “forced” to marry to have the same “benefits” that straight couples receive. Her vacillation in the following excerpt speaks volumes:

It’s not that we’re antimarriage; rather, we think marriage ought to be one choice in a menu of options by which relationships can be recognized and gain security. Like New York City’s mayor, Michael R. Bloomberg, who has been in a relationship for over 10 years without marrying, one can be an ardent supporter of marriage rights for same-sex couples while also recognizing that serious, committed relationships can be formed outside of marriage.

Here’s why I’m worried: Winning the right to marry is one thing; being forced to marry is quite another. How’s that? If the rollout of marriage equality in other states, like Massachusetts, is any guide, lesbian and gay people who have obtained health and other benefits for their domestic partners will be required by both public and private employers to marry their partners in order to keep those rights. In other words, “winning” the right to marry may mean “losing” the rights we have now as domestic partners, as we’ll be folded into the all-or-nothing world of marriage.

Hmmm, getting a bit worried about the specter of family law here, are we Ms. Franke?

As a lesbian, she is comfortable seeing men destroyed by marriage, but what if she ends up in the same situation? Child support… Custody litigation… Alimony… Domestic violence accusations (lesbians have highest rate of DV in the US)… Asset forfeiture…

“Domestic partnership” is starting to look a lot safer than marriage, now, isn’t it?

You know, as a straight male I’d like to have “a menu of options” myself, now that she mentions it. Somehow, I doubt that will be forthcoming…

Still avoiding getting to the point, Franke claims people might have a hard time understanding her position:

What’s difficult to explain is that for some lesbians and gay men, having our relationships sanctioned and regulated by the state is hardly something to celebrate … we’ve created loving and committed forms of family, care and attachment that far exceed, and often improve on, the narrow legal definition of marriage. Many of us are not ready to abandon those nonmarital ways of loving once we can legally marry.

How on earth is that “difficult to explain?” Perhaps for Franke, “a professor of law and the director of the Center for Gender and Sexuality Law at Columbia Law School,” it is difficult to explain to her probably lower-earning partner why she doesn’t want a civil marriage, but it certainly doesn’t take an advanced degree to wrap your head around that one if you’re a straight man. Actually, I doubt Franke herself has any difficulty understanding the drawbacks of marriage — she works in a field that has actively implemented them for decades.

This is a pure, unadulterated case of avoiding a dose of one’s own medicine. Now that I think about it, Franke deserves marriage. She and her fellow feminist law professors should walk the line through that “narrow legal definition of marriage” and see how it works out for them.