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November 24, 2003
Maggie Gallagher
On Marriage, from the Weekly Standard
What some dismiss as protecting "merely" the word marriage is actually 90 percent of the loaf. If a married couple no longer consists of a husband and wife, we lose the shared meaning of the word; we lose the ability to speak the idea in public and be understood. Such ideas are what culture is made of. Marriage is a word, yes, but so are property, freedom, democracy, morality, and love. The Ten Commandments are made of words. The opponents of marriage understand what many of its friends do not: Capturing the word is the key to deconstructing the institution.
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On both the left and right there is a tendency to assert that words can mean what we say they mean. Such a prescriptive view of language never completely works. Shared meaning cannot be legislated.
So when some tried to make the language "gender neutral", they failed for the most part but made some inroads. When we started issuing false birth certificates for adopted children, they got a little bit further, because the cause seemed so good. Now the conservatives are saying it's not inconsistent with their principles to legislate a massive socialized prescription program. It really is "conservative." Words start to mean anything we want them to mean. Liberals can't make distinctions of any kind on anything that can be labelled an abortion, even if it means cruelly killing a child as it is being born.
So we really shouldn't be surprised when homosexuals assert that their sodomy-based arrangements are really "marriages." It's just one more step down the slippery slope. What's next? Perhaps we could start calling pederasts "child identity counselors" or murderers "mortuary suppliers."
The Church, however, is caught in its own web of linguistic double-speak on the marriage issue. It already operates in a self-created world in which many civil marriages are not "real marriages" in its eyes. It is hard pressed to find another reason to object to just one more class of civil marriages that the Church, in its self-created system of "good" and "bad" marriages, just won't "recognize."
Posted by: Jim at Nov 24, 2003 11:55:10 AM
Jim, The slippery slope continues: the next step would be to criminalize the Church's non-recognition of "gay marriage" as discrimination.
Posted by: Patrick Sweeney at Nov 24, 2003 3:58:04 PM
True enough, but we are not really talking about the consequences to the Church and Church recognized marriages - we are talking about the consequences to the secular culture and civilly recognized marriage. A culture in which we live, but are (supposedly) not of.
Posted by: c matt at Nov 24, 2003 4:01:15 PM
All I know is if our culture tumbles much farther down this slope over the next year or so, I'm going to be pressing Father to marry us without a license, since it will be worthless anyway. All I want is Christ and His Church's blessing.
Posted by: Franklin Jennings at Nov 24, 2003 4:05:32 PM
Franklin, the licens is already worthless if you are only looking for God's blessing. It always has been.
Posted by: Barbara at Nov 24, 2003 6:58:50 PM
Jim, The slippery slope continues: the next step would be to criminalize the Church's non-recognition of "gay marriage" as discrimination.
The Church already is and should be subject to laws that protect people against unjust discrimination on account of their sexual orientation, just as it is subject to laws that protect people from unjust discrimination on account of their marital status, their religion, their gender, etc.
Posted by: J.B. at Nov 24, 2003 7:14:37 PM
J.B. "The Church already is and should be subject to laws that protect people against unjust discrimination on account of their sexual orientation..."
I guess when Xtian marriage is finally outlawed, then only outlaws will have Xtian marriages.
Posted by: Oengus Moonbones at Nov 24, 2003 10:23:33 PM
Maggie: You have the audacity to compare your right to speak the word marriage in public and still be stood to my right to share my life with the person I love? That's ballsy.
Posted by: Joe Perez at Nov 25, 2003 6:46:44 PM
