Queering Tradition

“Without our traditions, our lives would be as shaky as… as… as a fiddler on the roof!”

We live in a post-Fiddler-on-the-Roof age. No longer must we be bound by the gender roles that make up the bulk of Tevye the milkman’s song. We invent our marriages and partnerships every day, whether we are part of the LGBTQ community or not. We revise, reconstruct, and remake traditions every day. And we validate those traditions in front of our friends, families–whether of origin or by choice–and communities.

Whether we are marrying under our great-grandfather’s tallit, jumping the broom, performing a drag show, taking communion, or posing with leader’s in LGBTQ justice movements, we draw on the past to move beyond the present. Queer theorist José Esteban Muñoz writes in his book Cruising Utopia, “Queerness is a longing that propels us forward.” We are cruising utopia, we are meeting face-to-face, we are letting the facts of love propel us forward, but not without a rudder.