Full Length Research Paper
Princewill Bryan
Abstract
The early stages of nation building the US identified itself through patriarchal ideologies of masculinist “strength,” racial purity, and a heteronormative gender order solidified through monogamous marriage. It was these core values that not only differentiated the US from other countries, but defined it as superior. Hence, the national security imaginary naturalizes heterosexuality as the only normal mode of sexual identity, sexual practice, and social relation. Therefore, this article suggests that marriage functions as a normalizing mechanism of the nation to police the gendered, racial, and sexual configurations of its citizenry which constructs not only homosexuality, but any non-traditional family or relationship as deviant.