	Bob Hostetler > Writing

Redefining Marriage

by Bob Hostetler

Ever see a round square? Or feel a warm chill? Or hear a silent noise?

Of course you haven't.

Why not? Because a thing which defies its own definition is, by definition, absurd.

Which brings me to the issue of homosexual marriage. It was less than three weeks ago, but it's already old news that the Massachusetts Supreme Court ruled on November 17 (in Goodrich v. The Massachusetts Department of Public Health) that the state may not define marriage as being between a man and a woman because such a statute "deprives individuals of access to an institution of fundamental legal, personal, and social significance--the institution of marriage--because of a single trait . . . sexual orientation."

Like the "impressive clergyman" in the movie, The Princess Bride, Massachusetts' highest court uses the word "marriage" repeatedly--while betraying a little fuzziness about the word's true meaning.

My wife and I do a lot of premarital counseling for couples preparing for marriage (in fact, right now we're counseling five of the most beautiful, intelligent, and charming couples you'd ever want to meet). In the counseling process, one of the first things we ask of each couple is to define marriage (it's amazing how many of us, intelligent and accomplished though we may be, pursue something--like marriage--without thoughtfully defining what it is we're pursuing!). It's always a revealing and profitable activity. We all assume we know what marriage is. But if you were asked to sit down and write out a definition, how would you define it?

If you're married, what exactly happened on your wedding day? Did you enter into a civil union? A legal contract? A "blessed arrangement, a dream within a dream" as the movie minister put it? A sacred union of souls?

If you hope to marry, what is it you hope for? What do you mean when you talk of "getting married?"

"Marriage" is one of those words--like "square" or "cold" or "silent"--that we learned long ago, and for millenia now the meaning of the word has been unchanged since a time very close to the dawn of recorded history, when it was said, "For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh" (Genesis 2:24, NIV). And that definition has since been so clear to us that we have scarcely given it a thought. Until a court of seven judges (or, actually, a majority of four out of seven) informs us that what we've been calling "marriage" all these years is wrong. The word doesn't mean what it has always meant; it now means something new, something broader, something less . . . "invidious" in its "discrimination" (to use Justice Margaret Marshall's words).

This is not a small thing (George Winston, the protagonist in George Orwell's novel, 1984, was brutally tortured until he became willing to swear that two plus two equals five...a seemingly small thing, on the surface). I agree with Justice Marshall that discrimination is bad. I have no desire to deny anyone his or her rights as a citizen or as a human being. I have loved ones who are practicing homosexuals, and I don't want to see them cheated or treated wrongly in any way.

But if marriage is not what we've always meant when we used the word, what is it? The question is bigger than the polarizing issue of whether "marriage" (in the eyes of the state, at least) may involve not only a man and a woman but also a man and a man or a woman and a woman. If marriage may be fundamentally redefined, why may it not involve a child and an adult? Or a human and an animal? Or two of one and three of another?

Don't laugh. If such thoughts seem ridiculous to you, it's probably because you know what the word "marriage" means . . . and what it does not mean. The question is whether the courts can convince you otherwise.

This article appeared in the December 5, 2003 edition of the Hamilton Journal-News.

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