There has been a large uproar as of late about the semantic debate over the word marriage. The word’s origin is deeply rooted in religion and unfortunately used in government to help define a group of people for reasons of taxes, benefits and recognition under law. No matter what laws are passed, no matter what the feelings of the populace, it is safe to say that many religious groups will not allow nontraditional marriages to take place in their houses of worship. An American law or constitutional amendment will not change the way the Pope runs his church.
The need for the word marriage to define a same-sex union is simply a reflection of a need for acceptance. If that is the goal, passing a law, state, federal or otherwise backing marital unions of same-sex couples will do nothing to change the attitudes and acceptance people are aiming for. The problem is much deeper. It has to do with ideological differences. If you find that hard to believe, look at the civil rights movement. Even after the laws were passed, the issues of making people accept integration as ‘the way it should be’ was a longer and continuing battle. With the issue of marriage, we are not only changing our own constitution or law but also legally attempting to force religious organizations to accept a law contrary to their own teachings, and I would venture to say that is unfair.
The sad thing about this entire situation is the legal hair-splitting, which ends with people left on the out and people waiting to be recognized under law. If anything should be changed, get rid of the legal implications of what marriage constitutes and/or have marriage replaced with ‘any sort of civil union’. This is progressive action and it is unfair to discriminate against civil unions. What the church recognizes is its own right; what the government recognizes for reasons of benefit under law is their right. To continue as things are would be an unfair use of a religious belief to define a legal statute.
So until a time when this is worked out, you can only hope that more acceptance will occur and some day, maybe the religious groups will accept this too. But fighting over a word is silly. Make this debate legal and stop fighting over the word. Vermont and California have done this already by adding civil unions to its law and benefits.
It’s a first step toward redefining the way people accept things. The passing of a law will never change the hearts and minds of a group with 2,000 years of history behind it, and they might just choose to keep their word as is; change like this takes time. But that does not mean progress still can’t be achieved, it is just a matter of picking the right battles to fight.