Speech Act: Gay Marriage

Speech Act:
"I do"-but between two women

Does the fact that it is a homosexual union matter to Austin's criteria of a performative action?

I thought this was an interesting topic brought up by Amanda. In this case, whether it is a performative action or not depends on the individual interpretation. Presumably, the two women getting married would claim their act to be performative, as would their allies. This act, like any other, is happy as long as they mean what they say and perform the conventional procedure correctly. On the other hand, supporters of Prop. 8 would probably claim that this is not a performative action because it is contrary to "an accepted conventional procedure" which to them would mean marriage as fundamentally between a man and a woman. Therefore, they would claim that the procedure is not being preformed correctly and there is no actual action taking place when the two women say, "I do."

What Austin would say about the subject is impossible to determine because it would depend on whether he sees gay marriage as an accepted convention. However, he does address the type of controversy found with whether gay marriage is a performative action when he states, "It is inherent in the nature of any procedure that the limits of its applicability will remain vague." He admits that in this case "it becomes more or less arbitrary whether we regard ourselves as deciding that a convention does not exist or as deciding that the circumstances are not appropriate for the invocation of a convention...Tend to be bound by the 'precedent' we set." In this way, Austin would hold that it is a decision by our society whether gay marriage is upheld or not as a legitimate performative action.