Hidden Hegemonies of the Rainbow: The Racialised Scaffolding of Forced Marriage and Civil Partnership in the UK

Over the course of the last decade, law and policymakers in Britain have grappled with two seemingly unrelated social issues: forced marriages, and civil partnerships for lesbians and gay men. This paper examines the legal and policy responses to these two issues, not as discrete state projects but rather as legislative and policy initiatives that share a historical present deeply preoccupied with the interlock of terrorism, immigration and border control, and state efforts to fashion British citizenship based on 'shared values' of equality and human rights. With a focus on two key figures, the publically committed gay/lesbian couple and the imperilled lesbian/gay man at risk of forced marriage, the paper foregrounds intertwining discursive frames of 'visibility' and living an 'out' life as spaces where "hidden hegemonies'' reside because of the way they are made to matter in deeply racialised ways.