The sea of red “equal” signs on Facebook over the past two days might lead the casual clicker to believe that all progressives are united in support of gay marriage. But there are a handful of holdouts.

Nancy Polikoff, a professor of law at American University, is among a small group of queer academics and activists who have opposed the growing drumbeat in favor of gay marriage. The author of “Beyond (Straight and Gay) Marriage” is among the proponents of a critique of “marriage equality” hinging on the pitfalls of marriage itself — Polikoff argues that there should be options for couples other than marriage, an institution that blends church and state.

Polikoff and some other academics and activists had hoped the conversation about marriage would go in a different direction, perhaps even abolishing the idea of “marriage” as a contract issued by the state.

Once gay people are just like everyone else, many of these critics argue, they won’t be able to fight for new definitions of legally recognized unions that are less binding, or less restrictive. They imagined something different than being pulled into marriage, an institution often tied closely to the church, defined conservatively by the state, and celebrated as the ultimate achievement of any individual.

“What gets swept away is this interesting critique that came out of gay culture and the feminist movement. It’s all been reduced to wedding cakes,” said William Dobbs, who was active in the early years of ACT UP.

Had history bent a different way, the gay movement might still be fighting for measures of equality beyond marriage and more pertinent to broader social justice. At least, that’s what Polikoff and those like her believe. The sex columnist Dan Savage disagrees.

“Some people took pride in that, that outlaw status,” Savage told Salon. “The people who were into the outlaw thing, they felt like part of the tribe, but there were people in that tribe that felt they were not there by their own free choice. The minute that they got the option to walk away, they did. That’s driving some of the people who identified as outlaws a bit crazy. They thought they were in a parade and they weren’t; it was a forced march.”

Polikoff, however, continues to fight against the tide, with her recent book advocating the end of marriage as an institution bestowing legal privileges. As the Supreme Court debates gay marriage, Polikoff, herself a lesbian, spoke to Salon about how the fight for marriage got so far so quickly — and why she and other critics from the left are hoping for more sweeping and systemic change in how we view marriage.

Can you talk a little about your background opposing marriage?

I’d have to trace it to feminism in the 1970s and a critique of institution of marriage. There are these two essays by Tom Stoddard and Paula Ettelbrick that are relatively short and have gotten this iconic status over the years. Tom was executive director of Lambda Legal and Paula was legal director and they wrote this pair of essays, published in 1989. Paula and I were buddies and I was one of the people who worked on that piece with her. [Ettelbrick took an anti-marriage view with an essay titled “Since When Is Marriage a Path to Liberation?”]

My critique of marriage stems from the 1970s. As gay people began talking about this more, there were these questions about using the resources of fledgling legal groups on marriage. There was a significant contingent of people who identified as feminists who said, “This is the wrong approach, this isn’t what we should be doing.” That viewpoint carried the day for a long time. My point of view dates back to long before where we are now.

Are you married?

I’m in a registered domestic partnership. We have the option to marry. We have not. D.C. has always allowed same-sex couples and different-sex couples and any two people living together in a committed familial relationship to register as domestic partners. D.C. did not eliminate its domestic partnership. Because D.C. had it as an option for more than same-sex couples — it wasn’t a way station.

What changed the mainstream view of marriage among gay people from a lost cause to something to which so much energy should be devoted?

Logistically, what happened was the Hawaii case [declaring, in 1993, that banning same-sex marriage violated the state Constitution], which was not brought by any gay rights organizations. It was brought by a lawyer in Hawaii. When that case was decided in 1993 by the Hawaii Supreme Court and said that state has to prove a really good reason for preventing gay couples from marrying: That was a game changer. That was the first time a state’s highest court said this might be a violation of our Constitution. And gay people realized: We might be able to win marriage.

From that point on, gay rights legal groups did start committing resources. The case was going to keep being litigated in Hawaii, and it was going to go forward with or without help. If there was expertise in [gay-rights] organizations, they would want them to be done well. The Hawaii decision led to state actions and federal actions in terms of DOMA. DOMA is passed in 1996; that wouldn’t have happened without the Hawaii decision.