DOMA

Over the last couple of days there has been a lot of things happening on the social jusice front. In CA yesterday, the Deffense of Marriage Act, or DOMA, was overturned by the Supreme Court, effectively making gay and lesbian marriages legal in that state.

First of all, DOMA was an attempt on the part of those who are religious to maintain the status quo, or to keep the term "marriage" as one that applies to only a union between a man and a woman. The reason that they wanted this was because "marriage" is a religious term that has been adopted by the world at large. However, the legal union between a man and a woman has been around since the beginning of civilization. Given that the beginning of civilitation was strictly religious based, the history of the term can be traced back to religious roots. The main argument, then, is not that we who are religious are trying to dictate who you as a person are allowed to love, or even who you are allowed to spend the rest of your life with. We're not even trying to say that you don't deserve a legal union recognized by the state, with all the benefits that come with it. We are saying that because of the background of the term "marriage" it should only apply to what it has always applied to. That is, a union between a man and woman.

Having said this, since the other side is determined to ignore the roots of the word "marriage," in addition to being determined to paint us as the bad guys who don't want homosexuals to be allowed to have relationships, I propose this alternative. Those who want a religious legal union that is recognized by the state, should be given the right to call it something different. Since our term for such a union has been "redefined" by the state, to no longer mean what it once did, then we should also have the right to "redefine" what our unions are called. The original words in Hebrew and Greek that have been translated as "marriage" in our Bible have more the denotation of a union between a man and a woman, anyway. We've simply used the word "marriage" to depict that kind of union, so that how it is translated. So let us pass a law that allows us to change the term. Concede the word to the other side. It's just a word after all. The meaning for us stays the same, whether the term used to describe it does or not.