More Than Traditional, It's True: A Call to Change the Way We Speak of Marriage

By Jennifer Hartline
8/12/2012
Catholic Online (www.catholic.org)

Fellow defenders of true marriage, choose your words wisely. Don't join the rest of the world in declaring what is true to be merely traditional.

We do not call abortion "choice" because it is never a moral choice. It is murder. Two persons of the same gender cannot enter into marriage. It is ontologically impossible. So it's quite silly for us to begin describing marriage as "traditional" vs. "same-sex" because it's drawing a distinction between marriage and something that can never even exist in the first place. There is a better way to draw a distinction and that's the way Deacon Keith Fournier has been doing all along: using the word true. True marriage only happens between a man and a woman.

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WASHINGTON, D.C. (Catholic Online) - Don't shoot me, but I think maybe the choir is singing the wrong tune. At least I think they're getting the lyrics mixed up a bit. So I'm sticking my neck out (I may regret it) and piping up. Here goes...

Honestly, more and more these days I find myself feeling like Eliza Doolittle. "Words, words, words, I'm so sick of words..." (Campaign season does nothing to help. Ugh.) Especially since words are being twisted into such wildly contorted things; words are being drained of their real meaning and stuffed with something cunning and artificial; words are being hijacked and deformed. And sadly, words have always made pretty powerful weapons.

So it's all the more incumbent on us as Christians in a culture descending into an immoral abyss to choose our words wisely and use them well. Let's make sure what we say accurately reflects what is true about the human person; about God; about marriage and the family. Above all, we must make sure our words aren't crafted to cause harm but to shed light.

I want to scream when I read articles containing the ever-popular term "fertilized egg." It's a favorite of the abortion industry because it's a handy dehumanizing term in their rhetoric war against the fact that life begins at conception. But I've also seen the phrase used by pro-lifers and people of faith.

The term drives me nuts because it's wholly inadequate at best, and just plain inaccurate at worst. Fertilization is a singular event in time when a sperm joins with an ovum and once it happens, what you have is no longer an egg (fertilized or otherwise) but a newly-conceived human -- an entirely new and distinct being.

Think of it this way: it takes yellow and blue to make green. Once you mix yellow and blue, what you have is not "yellowized-blue" or "blueized-yellow" but green. You could no longer separate the yellow from the blue if you wanted to. They have combined to create something entirely new and different and it has its own name.

We're now caught up in a similar word-game with marriage.

I have a little bone to pick with well-meaning people who are using the phrase "traditional marriage" to refer to marriage, in an attempt to distinguish it from same-sex "marriage." This idea is everywhere these days in secular as well as religious media. It posits that there is "traditional" marriage (between a man and a woman), and now other, more modern, progressive forms of marriage as well (same-sex couples). Christians and other people of faith have begun adopting this language right along with the rest of society.

I politely suggest it needs to stop. Language matters. We are not doing marriage any favors by using such terminology, no matter how good our intentions, or even if we're just seeking clarity in dialogue. The world has decided that marriage will now be classified into types and that same-sex "marriage" is now one of those types. We cannot go along with that classification.

Marriage means something. It has an intrinsic and unchangeable nature. If we reduce marriage to simply an agreement between any two people who love each other then we have utterly destroyed the meaning of marriage. It will become a trivial, throw-away concept because its core will be only self-seeking.

In the same way that we do not call abortion "choice" because it isn't in any way a legitimate moral choice but is in fact murder, so we cannot succumb to the easy temptation to call marriage "traditional" in order to set it apart from same-sex "marriage." Two persons of the same gender cannot enter into marriage. It is ontologically impossible. So it's quite silly for us to begin describing marriage as "traditional" vs. "same-sex" because it's drawing a distinction between marriage and something that can never even exist in the first place.

Using the green analogy again, no matter how forcefully I insist that I want to make green with two yellows or two blues, it will never happen. It's just not possible. The nature of green cannot be changed.

There is a better way to draw a distinction and that's the way Deacon Keith Fournier has been doing all along: using the word true. True marriage only happens between a man and a woman. Some may feel that's a more provocative term, but it is accurate and faithful to the integrity of marriage.

There is only marriage, and it only happens between a man and woman. That's not my plan or your plan; it's God's plan. We have to understand this, and be unflinching in stating it and defending it. Whatever relationship of sexual intimacy, fidelity, and love exists between two men or two ...

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1 - 10 of 22 Comments

Beth
10 months ago
Thank you, Jason B.!
Jason B.
10 months ago
@Vance, "Sick homosexual perverts"? Really? You do know that this is a catholic website, right? No matter how much you disagree with homosexuals, they are human beings are their intrinsic dignity must be upheld. CCC 2358 "The number of men and women who have deep-seated homosexual tendencies is not negligible. This inclination, which is objectively disordered, constitutes for most of them a trial. They must be accepted with respect, compassion, and sensitivity. Every sign of unjust discrimination in their regard should be avoided. These persons are called to fulfill God's will in their lives and, if they are Christians, to unite to the sacrifice of the Lord's Cross the difficulties they may encounter from their condition."
kathy
10 months ago
Personally, I am shocked at the great number of people who have caved to the social pressures of what the "New normal" supposedly is. Is it just easier to give in, and not step on anyones toes, in order to get along, or in order to seem that you are not racists or hateful or a biggot. Our faith and values have taken a back seat to pleasing man. The bible clearly tells us that we cannot serve two Gods. We are caught in the throws of having to keep our mouths shut in order to keep our jobs, our friends, our family members happy and without conflict. I live in a large Baptist environment, and I am amazed at just because the Presidents views have "evolved", theirs seems to be doing so also. We need to take heed, and believe the bible, when it tells us that few will enter the kingdom of heaven.
Judy Claar
10 months ago
Hi Vance: I usually, as you know, like Jo Ann, disagree with getting on any leaders of the Church. I still do. However, I am wondering if there is something wrong with me, as I am beginning to share (a wee bit) in your frustration. Pope Benedict has made a stand. While a few others have voiced their opinion But it is the lack of the greater majority: priests, Bishops, Cardinals in authority, particulary with an election coming up, that I would think they would be a bit more vocal. Especially from the pulpit. The pulpit is where most hear about the Catholic Church. You wrote a very good post explaining what the Bishops and priests, could and could not do. I think that it is the lacking of what they can do or say, that is what concerns me. Obey authority in everything except sin. That seems easy enough. Obama=Abortion=Murder=Sin. But perhaps Church leaders would enter a slippery slope...Or not...with Journalists, people? It seems like since the HHS Mandate got put on hold for a year, everyone is hush hush. I do not think it should be that way...but what do I know? Nothing.
Evening Blessings...
Vance
10 months ago
Yes, we need to address Marriage as what it is, Holy Sacrament of Matrimony. This world belongs to he who made - God. I could care less what an atheist or a sick homosexual pervert has to say because they didn't create this world. It is God who we serve and obey. I just wish that the majority of Bishops and priests would get on board defending the Holy Sacrament they volunteered to serve.
Juneau Alaska
10 months ago
It seems to me that if people of faith want to have the privilege of having their marriages recognized by the State, then they must follow the same civil rules against discrimination. -Mike
robert matzinger
10 months ago
We are in an entirely new era: one in which even the word "marriage" as described by the president of the United States now has no meaning. We used to think of marriage as that one of a union between a male and a female. Now, according to President Obama, that is not true. According to him, "marriage" is now between a man and a woman, a man and a man, and woman and a woman and that there is no difference. That there is no difference between a man and woman creating children and having what we call a family, and a man and man raising children, etc. And of course there then must be no difference in sex between a male/female, a male/male, and a female/female - according to Obama and the democrats it's all the same. Obama has managed to take away not only from the Christain definition of marriage, but also from the long held traditional societal value held that the only marriage that is valid is one between a man and a woman. Obama has managed to throw all that away and simply declare that "any" union between any people, male or female, can be considered "marriage," and therefor now the word "marriage" has no meaning whatsoever.

And the democratic party has now decided to endorse "gay" marriage in it's party platform. There once was a time, and not too long ago, that would have been thought unthinkable. Today, Obama and the democratic party are convinced that the majority of Americans agree with them: male/female, male/male, and female/female "marriage" is all the same, sex between them all is the same, etc. That there is no difference or advantage/disadvantage in the raising of children, whether biological or not, whether raised by male/female, male/male/ or female/female, that it is all the same.

And what will they declare next to be the same? What else will they attempt to destroy?
Greg
10 months ago
Hmmm, sounds very reasonable.

Men are not defined by sex. It is sex that is defined by men.

People who use "Birth Control" does not believe neither in birth nor in control, so why do they use these words?

How can they say "Equality in Marriage" when they are incapable of "Equality of Expressing it"?

I suspect God calls us back to His school...
Beth
10 months ago
Great article - an excellent point about the importance of words. Lately I have been seeing on my FB page many wall photos featuring Scripture verses that condemn other sins as punishable by death, advocate the subjugation of women to men, etc. - and people are using these as a means of discrediting Scripture on the issue of homosexuality. How do we respond to these arguments? (Please know that I am asking this sincerely, for I try to be a faithful Catholic.) I know we read Scripture differently from those who quote specific verses as the sole justification for their beliefs - but this makes it difficult for those of us who are Catholic to then defend our opposition to calling same-sex relationships "marriages", b/c we are lumped into the same category as those who stand solely on Scripture - and also those who justify their hatred of homosexuals by quoting the Bible. Thoughts? Because I have many friends about whom I care very deeply who are on the "other side" of this issue - a few b/c they are gay, others just b/c they feel it is the "fair" and "just" thing to do.
Willem
10 months ago

Thank you for this well written article.
Agree completely that the word true is apt. True faith, true marriage, truely believing in traditional values set by the church of all times.
Brgds

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