Gay & Lesbian Couples Only Need Another Word - Not Marriage

What is under assault in the American fabric of life today is not the validity or existence of and practice of "gay", "lesbian" and/or homosexual couples. That is happening, has happened and always will. What is under assault is the descriptor that civilized society has always used that defines the institution that a man and a woman enter into when they join as a couple. Since the earliest days of recorded man on earth there has been a state of union come to be known as "marriage". Some dare go so far as to say it is sacred, that it is even non-dissolvable. While the arguments for and against the conditions of matrimony and qualifications required for marriage are wide and mega faceted, one thing has been a constant throughout its existence. It is between one man and one woman. While the solidarity of the union called marriage covers many fields of debate, there are two things that we can and most certainly have a right to do. That is to decide whether or not it is a word that we can permit to be used to define other arenas of behaviors and tastes beyond those which it has traditionally been intended for. The second thing is to decide to whom the word belongs.

It is my avid opinion that we as a society cannot afford to allow a hi-jacking of the words, "marriage" and "matrimony" and their meanings. They are and have been essential to the very blocks upon which mankind depended in order to build not only our nation's foundations, traditions and institutions but those of civilization as well.

Should we begin to dissemble those very foundations by looking for new owners of our traditional words?

It is arguable I suppose, that it is time to throw out all of the traditions upon which civilization as well as our nation was built. Assuming that most of us would feel that is a horribly irresponsible way to approach what our ancestors left us, allow me to continue. Most people are very interested in the traditions and customs of their ancestors, there is after all an entire science devoted to it. Alex Haley spent exhaustive lifetimes of hours seeking the traditions and culture stolen from the people from which he descended. In view of that as a proof that we owe something to our ancestors for the importance of what they brought to us and also as a proof that we have a debt to our descendents let's look a bit more into this.

Our ancestors who married in the oldest traditions and did so in full accordance with those traditions and practiced them at great price throughout their lives left us a message about them and what was required for people to not only descend, but also to ascend. We must think from where we came in order to do for those who come after us. And doing for them who come after us is how we shall ascend. Past matters, and this is so in that if we do not wipe the pride off from our faces long enough to take a look at it we may not leave any for our children and their children and so forth. It is not all about "us". Mankind has been here for a perilously long time. Everything we experience has been experienced before. There have been homosexual people for as far back as recorded time. They have never, not been there. Get used to it. They exist and always have. Throughout that entire time there has been a condition of unity called marriage. It has always been between a couple comprised of one man and one woman. They have been called husband and wife, and married, and hitched, and hooked-up, and all sorts of and manner of colloquialisms, but, the one word that has come down thru posterity is "Marriage" and its verbal variations.

In view of looking and seeing what has been for centuries and even ages I am feeling pretty cocky and confident that this is a word that describes a man/woman union. And, further we would have no trouble thinking to assume that our ancestors would say that it belonged to them. I do not believe it is wise for us, here in this one little tiny generation to start thinking it is time to latch onto the nearest butcher knife and start slicin' and dicin' from civilization's very fabric until we get what we want and eliminate what does not fit today's politically correct trends. We must think of the future generations who will look to the past in order to find some grounding in what is only our future, which, we will ascend into. We have a debt to them which is due and payable when they look back to us for the suggestions they will need from how we conducted ourselves and what we did with the traditions and values that were entrusted to us for them. When we make the deposit into posterity, we better be sure it is what will get them thru their struggles and their times. And, when it comes to things of this nature we can safely look to the past for our answers. From that vantage point, is it safe to mine down beneath all that civilization was built upon and via our own pomp be arrogant enough to disembowel the past? The homosexual people have by their own descriptions of heterosexual couples left this responsibility to the future with heterosexuals by calling them "breeders? Heterosexuals are in that role of caring for those we breed and it is even recognized by the homosexual world and part of that is looking out for what we leave those we have "bred".

In that genre and through that vein it is imperative that we heterosexual couples of one man one woman marriages do look this issue over carefully. We all come from that long lineage of proud ancestors who gave lifetimes of devotion to get this here to us. We must care for it. We must not allow the word that describes one of our most sacred conditions of unity to be usurped and stolen; hi-jacked from the very founding's from which it was delivered to us upon. It is our watch, and it is up to us to leave for our descendants that gift of marriage that was left in our care.

We must find a way to open this to an honest assessment of its value and excersize open dialogue among those of us who own this word and call it for what it truly is. We will deserve what we will come to be known as and it is still up to us to decide what that will be. Did we respect the products of our breeding by leaving to them what was on loan to us for them by who are their ancestors too, or do we flop on the job and allow an encroachment by those who think only to disrespect the significance of heterosexual couples by assuming they are the same thing? We will be subject to those descriptors that will be used to define us and our vigilance or lack of it from those in the future who will need what we gave up in favor of generational pride and personal glorification. They will look for their roots and traditional values and see instead that nothing is beyond reproach and that all is contemptible and there will await them instead of value: a void. We will be questioned by some and eventually left forgotten in what will become a future that will provocatively more then than now and still more with each generation indicate that nothing from our ancestors counted and to that from which we came no debt is due. Our descendents, those which we bred will be left with no validity from their past. What does that do to the philosophy that "from where went our past there goes our future"?

The point is this, there are plenty of words. Heaven knows there are far more than we need. I have no problem with people of other persuasions wishing to describe themselves or their unions. Some I might suggest would be "gayamony" or how about "menagerie", or even "coupled"? Maybe you all could even take the word "silly" and become "silled", hell, it matches quite nicely with "gay". All fun and games aside, there are all manner of words available, just get together somewhere and have a convention and have a think tank pontificate over it and see what you come up with. Leave "marriage" where it is. That's what is at the heart of this. That word has owners already. To take it would be larcenous. For hetero people to allow it would be even worse.

No heteros I know really care if GLH couples want to do as, or live like heterosexual couples the point is, the word marriage does not belong to same-sex couples. Truly, I don't know a single person that has a personal problem with homosexuals doing anything. This issue in which the homosexual couple wants to be recognized by the word "marriage" or "married" is just not going to boil down well. Those words are treasured and are the intimate and unique domain of opposite sex relationships. Just like in the days of the gay chant, "We're here! We're queer! Get used to it!" the words "Marriage and Marry are not for the Faerie!! Get used to it!!" The need for a hetero battle cry is important so there it is.

Fact is: there are people who are same-sex couples. Fact is, similarly: opposite-sex relationships do not see fit to have their primary descriptor torn from them nor do they believe it must be shared. For the gay lesbian coalition to insist on this split of the word marriage that will in effect water it down is selfish, presumptive and absurd.

This is one way to compare it in a less sensitive context: Think how it may feel to a baseball fan if some wished to change the descriptor used to describe a team making a point from "home-run" to "touchdown". Just think of the traditions and folly associated with that. It just is not right or equitable and it would be seen as selfish and imposing. All the songs are about home runs, all the poems are about home-runs and the word home-run has an adopted meaning as well as a functional meaning. It belongs to baseball and baseball players and even to America as it is used within as well as outside of its context by simple default. Such as a teacer telling her student she hit a home-run with that great paper.

As in that example, the word "marriage" belongs to men, women, and America in its adopted as well as literal/functional meaning and it is a domain of heterosexual couples as homerun is to baseballers and it is by default a word that means one man and one woman.

To allow this to turn into a controversy that goes beyond these simple confines and the simple points in this is not advisable. And, this should never be allowed by those of us entrusted to wage this battle to degenerate to a discussion of money, survivor's rights, retirement, social security issues or any other thing than the words "marriage" and "matrimony". If such were to occur the accepted precedents for the meanings, understandings, and interpretations of those words could easily be lost in the ensuing dust-storms of endless philosophical debate. There is nothing that educated idiots with too much time on their hands can't turn into an utter mess.

Another pitfall that I see people falling into is the one in which the argument is made that if the gay couples have to use a descriptor other than marriage then they are opening themselves up to scrutiny and prejudices. Let us all say this together-"Laws exist against such things", and in our country of constitutionally guaranteed freedom we do not have to stand by and allow ourselves to be accused of criminal intent based upon someone's fear. If we have not been proven to do wrong and to be a non-observer of law then we damned well are innocent until proven guilty. Wishing to maintain the context of the words hetero people use to refer to their man/woman unions is not contemptible nor something we should feel guilt over. The fact is, we are here too, and the word is ours and to be held in contempt for upholding it would be something we should proudly do, but guilt? I think never.

The words "marriage" and "matrimony" are what I like to know of as mine. Fact is, I can remember when "gay" meant happy. That's an age thing, I guess. If we can give up a word meaning light, airy and happy to solve an issue, so can we afford another to solve this issue. I don't remember anybody wanting to give away the word "gay" either. As I recall, it was simply taken. Help yourselves to another one. We'll make more we can even make more together, but "marriage" and its little verbal cousins like "married" and "matrimony" and "marry" are and should belong to those of us who have owned them since the sun was new.