Redefining "marriage" silences ideas that the queer community finds inconvenient.

You've graciously followed my lead, and I owe you my postponed responses to many points. Please allow the debt a moment longer, so that your challenge can lead us where it will. I still owe you responses to your very first post and to other points you've made.

I think that you and I agree completely as to your challenge. I do not agree with that state of affairs. My preferred cure would be to take a text editor to the entire body of statute and replace all occurances of "marriage" with "civil union". As far as government is concerned, no one marries. Everyone just registers civil unions. Government operates as if the word "marriage" does not exist in the language. In the queue at the government registry window, a male-female couple might be standing behind male-male living partners. The male-male pair declares, "Please register us as a civil union." and then they pay the fee. The effect is that they have status X in all things related to government and economics. Then the male-female pair declares, "Please register us as a civil union." and then they pay the fee. The effect is exactly the same for them; they have the same status X in all things related to government and economics.

My views are well indicated by a passage from private correspondence sent to me by a former close friend who identifies as queer and who lives (I hope) in the United Kingdom:

"In the United Kingdom, the Civil Partnerships Act (which implements identical rights, both legal and ceremonial, to same-sex couples of civil union) passed with comparatively little dissent, and I have seen almost no evidence of anyone campaigning against it since it was passed. The reason for this is it does not attempt to force a new definition of a social concept of "marriage" on the population: I doubt many, even homophobes, would say that same-sex partners should be denied the legal aspects of union; their problem is more that "marriage", which has an ethnosocial and religious meaning to them, has special significance."

Both my friend and I are of the opinion that the attempt by the queer community to force a redefinition of the word "marriage" in the United States is folly.

I say "former friend" because I have lost contact with him and am deeply concerned about his well being. He has a medical condition, and in perhaps my last conversation with him, he told of being beaten by the police, perhaps because he is queer.

The ONLY issue that I have with the queer agenda in the United States is this business about forcing or arranging for a change to the definition of the word "marriage". I claim that changing the definition of the word "marriage" would effectively silence "the marriage norm" and render thousands of years of written expression of it unintelligible, as if all of the books were gathered, piled, and burned. I oppose this silencing. Silencing the opposing view is not the way to prevail. If the queer community continues to press for this silencing, I think that it won't work and that it will backfire and cause much harm.

Thank you so much for dialoging with me intelligently and respectfully. Space and fatigue have prevented me from responding adequately to the many interesting points you've made. It would be wonderful to continue our conversation and I hope that we do.