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'In the Sight of God': Gender Complementarity and the Male Homosocial Signification of Male-Female Marriage

Although traditionalist critics of same-sex marriage insist that marriage is properly constituted by an essential difference between a man and a woman, appeal to such a difference more comprehensively describes a system of relations among and between men. As a result, a critical analysis of gender complementarity must be developed that focuses on functional relations between men, as those relations become structured by their normative ascription to male-female difference. 'Homosocial' relations must therefore be distinguished from 'homosexual' relations in order to encompass within a concept of desire the whole realm of ways that men interact. Much theological discourse about male-female difference can then be more accurately interpreted as argument about access to encounter with God, and especially about control of such access.

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