Stirring It Up!

My friend Don intended this to be a comment on the earlier article 'Is Marriage Evolving?' I asked his permission to post it as a contributed article. Enjoy!

Throughout history society has been afforded the opportunity to create new words. For your reference I offer the following web link:

http://www.randomhouse.com/words/newwords/index.html

You'll notice some of the new words have some similarity to an older word but, because it was slightly different it needed another word to describe it; ergo a new word and its own definition. They didn't just redefine an existing word.

You'll also notice that some of the words also were created, or evolved into existence, as a result of new technology or yes - (ahem) new ways of life or realities of life; goofball in the 1940's, doublespeak in the 1950's, hippie in the 1960's, chairperson in the 1970's, virtual reality in the 1980's, granny dumping in the 1990's, or how about one of this year's new words: mouse potato (person who spends much leisure time at a computer).

So as you can see, these new things or ways of life got their own word and their own specific definition.

Now, imagine a world (not too distant future?) where word meanings and definitions get changed simply to satisfy the desires of different groups or situations as they happen to come along "or evolve". Where by long standing definitions are modified to be all encompassing and less specific. What would be next, changing widely accepted theories or outcomes like the sum of 1+1?

At the risk of starting another moral debate concerning test tubes and Petri dishes or cloning, by definition could or will a mother or father end up being anything other than a female or a male? And heh, what about female and male? Perhaps someday it'll be argued that we've been interpreting those definitions too strictly all along and some ill-guided court will rule that God was wrong in His definitions of female and male as well. But wait; maybe if the definition of male and female were broadened or expanded, there would no longer be an issue with the use of husband and wife in the definition of marriage. End of debate. Let's find something else to redefine. Hey, I know, there must be something in the Ten Commandments that need updating to suit someone's needs.

I submit that the definition of marriage is, as it was defined from its early beginnings, a union between a man and a woman - as originally intended and created. To me, and by current definition, the phrase "same-sex marriage" is simply oxymoronic. If others want to come up with something that describes their union, a union that is not between a man and a woman all the power to them and I encourage them to do just that. Everything should have its own description and name.

Why not expand the meaning of the word mirage and use that? It's close enough to marriage, has some of the same letters and might better describe the type of “marriage” that exists between same sex couples. If not mirage, I'm sure there are all kinds of words in the cosmic word bank that are available and would better describe such a union other than “marriage”.

In choosing the one descriptive word or phrase for the union of other than a man and a woman, as much as I might not like to see the final rendition of the word and its description include the word "marriage", I would concede that something like "virtual marriage" is rather 21st century'ish sounding and might settle any non-God related arguments and serve the purpose.

However, I suspect that insurance companies, the IRS and a myriad of other bureaucratic groups, who have adopted God's long-standing definition of "marriage" for their classifications, might be hard-pressed to adopt any new rendition with open arms.

Perhaps that's the real issue here; and an issue best left for another thread on another forum.