The Trouble with Normal: Sex, Politics, and the Ethics of Queer Life is a book by Michael Warner, in which the author discusses the role of same-sex marriage as a goal for gay rights activists. First published in 1999 by The Free Press, an imprint of Simon & Schuster, it was re-published in 2000 in paperback by Harvard University Press. Warner argues that the right to marry is an inadequate and ultimately undesirable goal for gay rights activism. As well as addressing marriage, he considers other areas in which public discourse stigmatizes certain sexual behaviors, including through sensationalist coverage of sex scandals, public zoning initiatives that marginalize the sex industry, and the attempted use of shame to manage sexually transmitted disease. The book has been described as a clas