The inevitable “real world” use of the label “marriage”.

I woke up this morning and started thinking, “whom should I ‘fight’ for today with my spare time” and then it hit me while reading the local Star and Times. After reading and receiving some verbal feed back from my letter in the paper last week, it was obvious a little more needed to be said on the subject.

The word “marriage”, although ancient, is nothing more than a “label” society came to use (eons ago) to represent a “basket” of rights and privileges legally bestowed on any two individuals that committed themselves to each other for the long term (previously binding until death). Although the label has been historically limited in its use to the legal coupling of one man and one woman and entitling them to the “basket” of rights and privileges that legally go along with it. The label can and should be used for any two individuals interested and willing to enter into a legally binding long term committed relationship which also protects and provides their legal entitlement to that same “basket” of rights and privileges.

And here is why:

For demonstration purposes and to “satisfy” traditional marriage definition enthusiasts, I allocated 2 labels as follows:

I used the word “marriage” to label the legal coupling of one man and one woman.

I used the word “garriage” to label the legal coupling of one man and one man (or one woman and one woman)

Now the labels “marriage” and “garriage” are distinctly separate yet they can legally bestow the exact same “basket” of rights and privileges on both couples. The equality issue should now be resolved, but is it?

It sounds like a good plan but here is the confusing part. If both the labels “marriage and garriage” mean or represent the exact same commitment by each individual to the other and bestow the exact same “basket” of rights and privileges except one is between one man and one woman and the other is between one man and one man (or one woman and one woman), isn’t the 2^nd label pretty much redundant in the real world?

As an example, you meet someone unknown to you at a function, on being introduced to them you hear, “this is Sam and he is “married” to Bob over there by the fruit stand.” You think about that for a few seconds and then say, hey you are both guys, you are NOT “married” you are “garried”. So the person that introduced you says, oh! excuse me, yes you are correct, they are “garried” and not “married” but we all know they legally mean exactly the same thing except for the obvious!

Since there is no discernable way of identifying if a couple (gay, straight or otherwise) were married in a religious church service or in the presence of a justice of the peace. Post pomp and circumstance, the couples (gay, straight or otherwise) will be equivalently labeled as “married” in the eyes of society. So lets not kid ourselves, “married or garried”, we all know what it means, so lets get past the moot dual labels and call it what it is “a marriage” and move on to more important issues like finding jobs for all the “disabled” in society so they can get off and/or stay off welfare. As glamorous as society likes to think being on welfare is, in reality, it is NOT!