My problem is calling the same-sex arrangement a marriage.
Let the governments muck about in people's personal lives; we surrendered that eons ago and we'll never again see individual rights trump what government has taken.
Same goes for state's rights.
BUT, FOR BETTER OR WORSE, we are at the mercy of the government and "political correctness."
Was "The Donald" (Trump) out of line with his comments about Mexico's government? No. Was he politically INcorrect - absolutely. Freedom of speech is passé' in America. Do I agree with Mr. Trump? Not entirely.
The court decisions that force businesses to cater to any class of people hark back to the days of Jim Crow and segregation - apartheid, if you are "hip "and "live in the now." The beginning of the end for merchant freedom started along bus and train lines. Places where passengers had no choice of places to eat and sleep. I agree that restaurants and lodges along the way had to be open to one and all.
But I question if a flower shop in a Washington (State) community with multiple flower shops really needed to be forced to sell flowers for a same-sex "wedding."
But I digress.
For my two cents - the U.S. does not have "pennies, " by the way - I would prefer to call the state's sanction of homosexual commitments anything BUT "marriage." I really don't care WHAT word is used in lieu of "marriage."
Vinculum matrimonii has a high-tone ring to it; not easy to say, but it might do.
Coverture might be OK for "gay" (how did homosexuals become "gay"?) couples, but it's doubtful lesbian couples would find it suitable.
Conjugal union works well, as does Connubial union
JUST DON'T CALL THE ARRANGEMENT "MARRIAGE."
There is something sacred about marriage - if only the word.
While we - or at least I - are looking for a word other than "marriage" to denote a legally binding and sanctioned by the government (if not some organization with a religious tax exempt status), perhaps we - or I - should look for alternative words for "divorce" and the phrase "dissolution of marriage" which seems less confrontational than "divorce."
Maybe - and this will make forms printers happy - we should reword the question: "Any previous marriages" on the license form and replace it with "Any previous government sanctioned liaisons". Seems to me that would cover whatever our courts deem appropriate. (I don't know of any court, at least in the U.S., that sanctions connubial relations between a human and a non-human - animate or not - although I have heard of such "relationships.")
If we had accepted the fact that not everyone was the same as everyone else and provided equal rights to same-sex couples perhaps - just perhaps - this whole marriage discussion would not have been necessary. Between busy-bodies and blue noses, the Supremes have issued a fiat from on high that same-sex couples may be legally joined as couples; pity the justices failed to find a suitable, and polite, word for the arrangement.
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