David

Karki

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November 18, 2008

Words Mean Things, So Gay ‘Marriage’ Simply Isn’t

On Election Day, the people of California passed Proposition 8, a state constitutional amendment defining marriage as between one man and one woman only, reversing the state Supreme Court's attempt to order gay marriage upon the citizenry using entirely faulty reasoning.

“Equal protection” doesn't apply. Marriage is the perfect example of a law that passes muster. The policy is “one person, opposite sex” for each and every one of us. You may be interested in someone of the same sex or in more than one person, but the point is that the policy of government toward every individual is the same – one person, opposite sex. Were government to allow different unions for some but prohibit them for others, then you would have an equal protection claim.

Since then, there have been protests by those opposed to this reversal, which one could make a good case are actually counter-productive to their goal, and attempts to have courts overturn this. But as a constitutional amendment cannot be unconstitutional – the ACLU's belief that the First somehow outlaws public displays of Christianity notwithstanding – it would seem that the only way to change this is to pass another public referendum in 2010.

And that is a theme I see repeatedly in this debate – the meaning of words and the re-defining or ignoring of them. From amendments being unconstitutional, to twisting and warping “equal protection,” to demanding acceptance when doing so forcibly removes all meaning from it, this is a common theme here.

Let's start with the definition of the word “marriage.” I quote Webster's Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary:

marriage \'mar-ij\ n [ME mariage, fr. OF, fr. marier to marry]

1. The institution whereby a man and a woman are joined in a special kind of social and legal dependence for the purpose of founding and maintaining a family.

So-called “gay marriage” fails this definition on two counts. One, marriage is by definition between a man and a woman. Any other union, be it same-sex or involving three or more individuals, is not and therefore cannot be called marriage.

Two, the purpose is to birth and raise children, the permanence of the marriage ensuring that those who create biological offspring fulfill their responsibility to rear them. Two people of the same sex cannot do this. And any union of three or more – which insofar as reproduction goes, any same-sex union must inherently be, given the need for a third party of the opposite sex for use of their eggs/sperm/surrogate womb – means someone isn't a parent in any biological sense of the term. Only a male-female union has the potential to produce children belonging fully and totally to all members thereof. As such, any other union does not meet this part of the definition and cannot accurately be called marriage.

Moreover, as the above logic indicates, to place same-sex unions on the same plane as marriage is to say that child-bearing is irrelevant to the institution. As the definition makes clear, however, child-bearing is intrinsic to the institution. Without a way to ensure (to the best of our ability, at least) that children are both produced and properly raised, our civilization's future is put at risk.

It may sound a bit odd not to presume this, I realize, but the demographic trends are clear: Societies are aging (and in Europe's case, becoming more Muslim every day) because those who should be having children simply are not doing so. Therefore, our future will either be very different from our present (e.g. a Muslim Europe, a much older and more Spanish-speaking America) or won't be a future at all, if the demographic death spiral cannot be escaped.

And insofar as properly raising them goes, one only need look at the deleterious consequences of sky-high illegitimacy rates to see the results of ill-raising children. (Would that illegitimacy, an overwhelmingly hetero behavior, received a fraction of the attention this issue does. Or no-fault divorce, another hetero behavior that also numerically dwarfs this. To be sure, there are a great many glass-housed straight people who have no business throwing stones.)

Whatever it is that same-sex relationships constitute, another word must be used to describe it, as marriage is wholly unsuitable. To do so anyway is to completely bastardize the English language. And words don't stop meaning specifically what they do simply because we don't like it or find that too constricting.

Which then leads to another similar point: An endorsement or approval, by definition, is only meaningful if it's freely given. Coercing “acceptance” from someone is therefore an inherently pointless exercise. And forcing a legal institution upon a citizenry stomps all over their freedom of conscience, speech and religion by requiring them to recognize that which they may abhor and removing all element of free choice from the process. It's that coercive aspect against which many chafe, more so than the specific issue at hand.

If it's acceptance and recognition that is being sought here, forcing it upon people is no way to obtain it. And even if it were successful, it would be more fraudulent than real, rendering the whole effort meaningless.

So it comes down to a simple question, really: Do words, terms and concepts have fixed definitions, or are they infinitely malleable? And if the latter, at what point do you lose the essence of what things are by attempting to alter them so?

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