What Is the Government's Role in Marriage - Gay or Straight?
By Andy Heath
Let me start with a brief language lesson. In the English language, as well as several others, there is a concept known as the homonym. A homonym is a word that has more than one distinct meaning. For example, the word "register" can mean to sign up for school, but it can also be a machine to check you out at the grocery store.
I suppose my English professors will never forgive me for saying that the word "marriage" is also a homonym, but I suppose I will just have to live with that.
Marriage is a union between two or more people that the church celebrates. It usually involves two people who are very much in love with each other and ready to devote a lifetime partnership together. These two people will share their joy and their pain, and their lives will be richer and more fulfilling because they have each other. They do not necessarily complete each other, but they do enhance each other.
Marriage is also a piece of paper that says one man and one woman receive certain benefits from the government, such as tax benefits, property benefits, and many other rights such as hospital visitation that can be denied to someone who is not your marriage partner. This type of marriage does not require love, it does not require happiness, and it does not require the desire to form a life partnership together.
So you see there are two completely different definitions of marriage, but Christians often confuse the two. I wonder what would happen if the second definition of marriage above actually had a name other than marriage. I wonder if Christians would be so adamant in lobbying our government to deny us this human right.
Certainly government has a role in giving rights to partners who want such rights, but it does not have a role in denying those rights to same sex couples.
As for the first definition of marriage above, we as gay men and lesbian women have every right to find a church that will celebrate our union even if the government does not recognize it. We can still get married, have a ceremony, have a party, and invite our friends and our family (not that they will all come). This is something that we can do now because in the eyes of God, we are married, even if the government says we're not. And personally, I think God trumps the government.
