From a purely semantic point of view, the argument for gay marriage is problematic on at least two levels: the created, moral meanings of words, and word specificity and inclusiveness. This argument does not endeavor to dictate what gay couples should or should not be allowed to do by law, but discusses only the implications of vying to call it "marriage" specifically.
All things, ideas, etc. have strict definitions because words bear moral, legal, and emotional weight. For example, if I were to say:
“Undocumented civilians are becoming a permanent part our American economy,” that would sound much different than if I had said,
“Illegal aliens are taking our American jobs.”
The words "undocumented" "civilians" and "economy" carry much different moral meanings than the words "illegal" "aliens" and "American jobs." By the same token, the word “marriage” carries with it its own moral, legal, and emotional weight. Changing what we mean by “marriage” would alter significantly how it is understood legally, morally, and emotionally. I submit that to alter it in such a way that includes gay unions would alter these aspects of the word negatively.
If, indeed, the homosexual community is largely concerned with applying the word “marriage” to their unions more so than finding a new or alternative legal term that would give them the same status and privileges as straight married couples, then we can throw out the “gay rights” argument. Unless of course, being considered, by name separate from legal status, morally equal to heterosexual couples is considered a "right." However, an agenda of this sort would deign that there is something more morally satisfying about being “married.” It is a term which bears high moral weight. Which brings me to the issue of word specificity and inclusiveness.
When a word is more specific in its meaning, it has the potential to carry with it more specific moral weight. The word "sex" could refer to gender or the act of reproduction. "Reproduction" could refer to human intercourse or animal mating. "Intercourse" is sometimes referred to as "making love," a decidedly adult human term for the reproductive act. It is more specific, and is typically used only in more highly moral contexts. No one talks about teenagers wanting to "make love." It is too moral a term.
Unfortunately, when we alter terms to be more inclusive, such terms lose their specificity and therefore lose moral ground. That which is included in the new meaning of the term does not gain a significant amount of moral ground, but the term itself loses moral weight. To give an example, I’ll use the term “anti-social.”
This word used to mean introverted, socially reclusive, or extremely shy. To refer to people who are aggressively antisocial, or in other words, have no regard for other humans, psychologists used the term “sociopaths.” The word “sociopath” came to have a negative connotation, so the label was reduced to simply “anti-social,” or as someone having “anti-social personality disorder.” So now, the word “anti-social” brings to mind, not so much one who is simply shy, but one who is angry at society and takes advantage of others. It has become, then, somewhat insulting to refer to a simply shy person as “antisocial.” Not to mention, the original word “sociopath” has lost all original meaning to hyperbole.
We do not necessarily see groups of people in a different light just because we change how we label them. As words become more inclusive, they lose moral weight as they take upon themselves the least of their meanings. When you think about the word “retard” you do not think, “to hinder, delay, or slow the advance or progress of” (Webster’s New World College Dictionary, IV Ed.). The word “erection” does not typically bring to mind a structure such as a building or a bridge. The point is, the meanings of words are found in what they describe, especially in the least of what they describe. Once you change or add to what a word is to mean, you fundamentally change what the word brings to mind.
Back to the term “marriage.” The fact that language evolves means that once we began using the word “marriage” to refer to either: a man and a woman, a woman and a woman, or a man and a man, the term would have become too broad, and eventually, the term “marriage” would take on the meaning of least moral weight. If homosexuality is less of a social ideal than heterosexuality, which is likely, due to its inability to produce children, the new “marriage” would slowly but likely gravitate to mean only that, gay marriage. So, in 30 years, when you say you are “married,” you would have to specify “straight” because otherwise one might assume that you are gay and married.
Also, let's not forget that the fundamental purpose for the institution of marriage is for creating an economically and morally pleasing context for bearing and raising children. Sanctioning gay partnerships under the term "marriage" is simply absurd by this logic, since they cannot have children by natural means. Let you who support what you suppose to be gay rights, realize that being called "married" itself is not a right. Let us prove how creative we can be, and perhaps think of a different name for a similar set of legal privileges that gay couples may truly have a claim on. Let me explain by talking a bit about the term "rights." Closely tied in to the semantics argument is the argument concerning definitions. Let me define for you, from the Webster's New World College Dictionary, the word "right":
"2a) that which a person has a just claim to; power, privilege, etc. that belongs to a person by law, nature, or tradition."
"by tradition": There is no lasting tradition in this country or in Western history to support couching gay unions under the term "marriage."
"by nature": It is certainly not by nature gays should be called "married" since marriage in the social sense is primarily for the bearing and raising of children as a natural result of heterosexual sex, and gays cannot have children by virtue of their homosexual behavior; the very behavior they want accepted as "married" behavior, "married" sex. This is where gays and blacks have had very different arguments concerning their rights. Blacks, by nature, could do everything that had ever been denied them until the late 1960s. Being gay goes against the nature of everything marriage has always been, what it stands for, and what is its primary purpose.
"by law": The people of California have amended their constitution, as have 30 other states, so as to make impossible marrying gays under the law, proving that they will not tolerate "legislating from the bench." Something, I understand many pro-gay liberals are also against. Interestingly, a similar thing happened in Utah recently concerning school vouchers. Vouchers were approved by the state legislature, (which should have given it more legal permanence) and immediately it went to a public vote, where the legislative decision to allow parents to use state funds to aid their child's private education, should they choose to do so, was soundly defeated in a 3-1 vote. Was there any great upset because those parents' "rights" to choose how and where and with what money their children were to be educated were being refused? Indeed not. This is a process which is part of our democratic government. We cannot cry "bigotry" or "hate" when it works against something we care about, words used often to describe those against calling gay couples "married."
Finally, and honestly, I would think, that since homosexuals and heterosexuals largely have very different feelings about the morality of their own behavior and the morality of the other, homosexuals themselves would be eager to create a new definition for their unions, separating themselves semantically, and thus, morally, from married couples. Unless, they feel that heterosexual married couples have something of a higher morality to offer, as I have guessed at earlier in this piece. Even something to aspire to. Yet, this cannot be. Something cannot aspire to be something it entirely is not. It can only supplant it. I propose that, before we take this enormous ideological leap, the homosexual community first think of a new name for it. As it was suggested in a recent Utah newspaper editorial, "How about calling it 'hitched'?" Yes, semantics are a big deal. And I believe the recent voting has more to do with that than with anything else. So let's clear it up. Give it its own name. Then we can begin talking about rights. The rights a homosexual couple may truly have claim to, "by law, by nature, and by tradition."
