When I was a guest lecturer at the University of Amsterdam in 2016, where I spoke about the relationship between Marxism and queer theory, another media campaign promoting same-sex marriage was underway in the Netherlands. The Dutch government concluded that the institution of marriage itself was in crisis – with an increasing number of divorces and fewer people getting married – so they decided to introduce additional benefits for married couples, regardless of their gender. When we talk about marriage, of course, it always involves privileges stemming from it, from symbolic ones – individuals with legalized partnerships are valued more than those who don't have them or are "single" (horrible word, horribly accurate!) – to concrete, legal ones: you can visit your spouse in the hospital/prison, inherit from them, etc. That was the aim of the Dutch ministry's campaign – as the family is the basic economic unit of society, supporting the "base" with state aid would sustain and strengthen the economy of the orange monarchy. I don't know how successful the initiative was, but I remember many gay couples I spoke with decided to get married. The reasons they cited were easier access to housing, the possibility of jointly taking out loans, etc. In other words, pragmatic Dutch people, raised on maternal milk and Protestant ethics, didn't delude themselves with romantic narratives about marriage; instead, they saw it as an instrument that makes life certainly easier and probably nicer.

When I discussed this experience with students, trying to approach it critically, questioning why married people should have more rights and privileges than those who aren't, if we take egalitarian society as our goal, there wasn't a clear answer. For example, if I'm single, why can't my best friend, regardless of gender, visit me in the hospital/prison? Why is that place reserved exclusively for a partner or family members I may not have? When I also asked about the political demands of Amsterdam Pride, most said they didn't know, which is understandable: long turned into a carnival procession of non-(hetero)normative lifestyles and a commercial event integrated into the tourist economy, such a pride parade can hardly articulate what hasn't already been fought for, especially in the "European gay capital" – Amsterdam, in a country that decriminalized same-sex sexual relations as early as 1811 and was a pioneer in many areas of lesbian/gay rights in the second half of the 20th century, thereby creating one of the most tolerant contemporary societies regarding acceptance of homosexuality. On the official Amsterdam Pride website, the emphasis is on parties and hotels; I couldn't find anything about discrimination. Finally, when I asked what would happen in the Netherlands if the average salary were reduced to the level of the average salary in Serbia, everyone agreed like clockwork: there would be a civil war! I'm not sure who would be against whom, but this observation was very indicative: it seemed that Dutch tolerance largely rests on the foundations of the good living standard of the citizens of this Northern European country.

There is currently no civil war in Serbia, although it is often cited as one of the poorest countries in Europe. Vaccination is progressing relatively well, despite various resistances, from denying the virus and "chipping" vaccines to pushing in vaccine lines, which destabilizes the necessary systematicity – and fairness – of this process. The announcement of the legalization of same-sex partnerships in the form of a law that was supposed to enter parliamentary procedure during the spring of 2021 – proposed by the Ministry for Human and Minority Rights and Minister Gordana Čomić – caused the expected media storm in a teacup, in my estimation somewhat smaller than in previous years, but with similar mechanisms of challenge and distortion of facts.

Thus, a part of the public that gravitates towards the right political position constantly insinuates that it's about introducing gay marriage "through the back door", which undermines traditional marriage and opens the possibility for same-sex couples to adopt children. I won't dwell on that now because the right to adopt children – which I support when it comes to individuals and communities of two or more people, regardless of sexual orientation – is not part of this law. So I would comment exclusively on the first objection.

The current Constitution of Serbia defines marriage as the union of a man and a woman, so for a same-sex union that would be called marital and equal in all respects to a heterosexual one, a change in the highest legal act would be necessary, and for now, we know that's not an option. To the part of the argument against same-sex marriage as something that questions traditional marriage, we can respond by reminding of the example of the Netherlands, which uses gay/lesbian marriage as a means of saving this institution as such – it's more about expanding the definition of the concept of marital union to same-sex couples, without denying heterosexual marriage in any way. In other words, same-sex unions strengthen the faltering traditional marriage, so they do not reduce the number of heterosexual marriages. The crisis of this institution has nothing to do with demands for legal recognition of what is already part of reality, namely, lesbian and gay couples. In that sense, the most visible example is Prime Minister Ana Brnabić herself, her de facto partner, and her de facto child.

What also benefits from such understanding of unity is the institution it relies on – the institution of monogamy, which few strictly adhere to in practice but which, as a strong social norm, influentially shapes our intimate relationships. As much as marriage exists to legalize the emotional and/or sexual relationship of two people, their love, it could also provide a legal framework for recognizing a community based on non-erotic love or a community of more than two people, i.e., polyamory, an increasingly popular phenomenon in the domain of affective relationships. I want to say something even more radical – damn marriage as such, let's all individually have the same rights, and let love happen outside the confines of any predefined traditional institution! Whoever cares about marriage for whatever reason can have a symbolic ceremony of entering that union however they want, but why should that entail anything in terms of privileges, except perhaps legal regulations that necessarily arise from such relationships and cannot be resolved otherwise, for example, how to regulate child custody in case of divorce, property distribution, etc.

I'm parting with this, to me, enticing utopian vision now and returning to the current reality of same-sex partnerships in Serbia. Legalization will, I believe, happen because it seems there's an acceptable legal formulation that doesn't use the term marriage, and there is political will for this to happen – otherwise, the government wouldn't open this chapter. Lesbians and gays – and currently mostly invisible bisexual individuals – will have the opportunity to formalize their relationships according to regulations similar to those in neighboring countries, Croatia and Montenegro. How much of these rights they will be able to realize will largely depend on their economic status, which, measured by European standards, is not the brightest – it's unlikely that the poorest citizens of Serbia will be able to obtain joint housing loans, as in the Netherlands. On the other hand, this will provide some with the opportunity to solve their housing problem independently – which brings us back to the issue of why access to something we can consider a fundamental human right, namely, living space in personal/social ownership, is not (unconditionally) accessible to everyone?

Also, the problem of societal homophobia is often obscured by progressive state measures that can hardly automatically achieve real acceptance of homosexuality: it seems that, beneath the rhetorical-legal surface of accepting homosexuality – in a country with a lesbian prime minister and a government where the representation of women approaches half – there still exists great intolerance towards same-sex orientation. Its phobic, specifically affective part is based on disgust, especially towards the fantasy of male-male anal sex, which is an aspect that is rarely talked about and often skipped by so-called intellectuals, even though in 2010, pop star Jelena Karleuša brought it into the public sphere with her column in Kurir. So I rehabilitate it here as an unpleasant, repulsive reminder of the reality we live in, where the word "fag" still has an extremely negative and offensive meaning. Those same fags and lesbians, still part of the despised in the world, currently have only one marriage or union they can choose, and often enter it due to homophobia: heterosexual marriage. I believe that the law on same-sex partnerships – slowly, in the long run – will open the possibility to change this unfortunate state, that fewer people will have to live in lies, and that this legal act, as in the Netherlands, will make life – difficult as it is – easier and nicer for homosexual and bisexual citizens of Serbia, and will – with all the reservations and problems I mention – make a significant contribution to creating a more tolerant society.