George Rebane
California’s Prop8 rescinded gay marriage in the state. The will of the people may now be overturned by the Supreme Court which is hearing the appeal to uphold Prop8 that in the interval was overturned as unconstitutional by lower courts. In this debate we recall that under California law, gay couples can already register domestic partnerships that provide the same rights and responsibilities as marriage.
So, as a couple of justices observed, it really comes down only to the use of the label ‘marriage’ when describing the association between homosexuals. Historically all cultures have reserved that label to identify the prime familial relationship between a man and a woman. Now the issue seems to be for the homosexual community to co-opt that label to also and with ambiguity identify their special relationship. It is no longer a matter of the rights and privileges that the relationship confers, they already have that.
As another side matter in this decision, the impact of same-sex marriages on children raised in such families is not known as is claimed by the usual activists promoting this new type of marriage. More here.
My preference is to retain the historical word ‘marriage’ in all languages to refer to the established union between a man and a woman. We make up new words for new ideas every day. Why can we not concoct a brand new label for the brand new relationship that the modern age recognizes between people of the same gender? The benefits to such unambiguous identification in all matters of social administration and intercourse would be enormous. One simple word would distinguish between the traditional societal norm and the newly imposed norm, and inform all of the exact nature of the so referenced couple.
After all, there is no intention to hide anything here, is there?
[5apr13 update] In
the comment stream below I introduced ‘garriage’ as the working label for gay
or same sex marriage in order to facilitate debate and discussion. Messing with an institution as fundamental as
marriage in its expansion to embrace same sex unions has unintended
consequences. Some of these are now
coming out in the media, even the lamestream, after chair of the Georgia
GOP Sue Everhart raised the benefits that straight people may gain when they game garriage. (She was instantly denigrated by the usual
liberal intellects like Stephen Colbert.)
With each passing day, more and more interesting possibilities open up for
non-homosexuals to become garried. The
most recent one I heard today was fathers garrying their sons and grandsons to gain
relief from asset transfer taxes that today don’t apply in marriages.
We can all now anticipate the elaborate patchwork of exceptions, codicils, and special provisions that will have to be appended to any law that will insist on calling such gay unions 'marriage' instead of giving them a unique and informative label. What a curiously deviant world progressive
thought provides us in so many areas of human intercourse.
rebanesruminations.com 
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