The Oakville Beaver
June 5, 2004
By Craig MacBride
I did it!
I figured out how to resolve the same-sex marriage debate.
It came to me as I was speaking to Rev. Charles Sathmary, a radio host who recently interviewed Oakville’s federal election candidates and was kind enough to invite me along as a witness.
The solution came not during the taping, but the next day, when I called Rev. Sathmary to clarify a couple of points.
We ended up in a discussion about some of the “Christian issues” brought up in the program, and he attempted to convince me that Christians need to vote for the candidate with the vision of Canada that is most similar to their own vision.
I had no problem with that. After all, isn’t that how everyone votes?
But then I found out what the views of many of Rev. Sathmary’s listeners are. I wasn’t irked so much by the views of Rev. Sathmary and his listeners, but by the basic principle on which they base their views.
“Christianity was the foundation…of most of the country,” said Rev. Sathmary, pointing out that “God” is still in the national anthem. “Things were never separated until man separated them, and that includes the government.”
If there is one thing I’m completely against, and I’m not alone in this, it is reversing the separation of church and state.
The anthem doesn’t bother me since I can’t afford Leafs tickets and, therefore, never have to listen to or sing the song anyways, but why I had to say the Lord’s Prayer in class during my first few years of elementary school, I’ll never understand.
I don’t like religion in politics because, if nothing else, the government and its institutions are meant to represent and cater to everyone in the country, not just the Christians, Jews, or Buddhists. That politicians should bend to the whim of one group and not another is absurd.
One of the “Christian issues” that the mentality surfaces in, of course, is same-sex marriage, something that Rev. Sathmary openly opposes.
He did make clear that he has absolutely nothing against homosexuals and that he loves them like he does all people. Regardless, he does have an obligation to protect God’s wordlist by doing everything in his power to prohibit the bastardization of the word ‘marriage.’
It is the same problem most opponents have: they think that if gay people get to use the word, then the word will no longer be as meaningful.
That’s really the key to understanding the argument.
When I first realized that, it astounded me. People aren’t worried about homosexuality, but about homosexuals stealing their words.
They can live on the same street. They can adopt children. They can parade through the city and monopolize the front pages of all the daily newspapers for one day every summer.
They can even be joined together in a loving bond symbolized by the trading of rings and presided over by a priest in the presence of family and friends inside a church…just don’t use the word marriage.
Call it a civil union, a civil bond, a domestic adhesion – anything but marriage.
Even Rev. Sathmary, a very smart man who is a pleasure to talk to, is scared of gay people stealing straight people words.
“They have the right to civil unions, but don’t throw our definition of marriage out the door,” said the reverend.
“Our definition of marriage” means Christian marriage because, in Rev. Sathmary’s words, “God created marriage.”
I assume he means the Christian God, in which case, any non-Christians who are getting married aren’t really getting married at all and should stop being so disrespectful by throwing the Christian definition of marriage out the door.
In order to show more respect to one of God’s favourite words, I have conjured up a solution I thought would be pleasing to all involved, regardless of your sexual or religious orientations.
Marrij.
That’s right, marrij is the answer.
Don’t bother looking it up, it’s not in the dictionary…yet.
It will be, though. Just give it time.
The reason marrij will work is because homosexuals who want to get married don’t want to be excluded, don’t want to be seen as fundamentally different than the co-ed couples who are their neighbours and friends.
With marrij, they won’t be, because the word sounds exactly the same and means nearly the exact same thing, except with two people of the same sex instead of two people of opposite sexes.
At the same time, by using the word marrij, they don’t have to desecrate God’s wordlist, because it is a different word, just like ‘there’ and ‘their’ are different words, despite the fact that they sound the same, leaving both homosexuals and Christians happy.
Sure, it’s not absolute equality, but how often are these couples going to write the word?
That’s the genius of the idea, if I may say so myself.
It’s a different word, and the people who want it to be different will always know it is different, but it sounds the same, so the people who want it to be the same will always be able to consider it the same.
In hetero, there’ll be marriage.
In homo, marrij.
Hetero: married.
Homo: marreed.
Seeing as marrij and marreed are my words, and not God’s, God will no longer be able to get upset at the Christian masses who didn’t rise up and vote Conservative to support the attempts (which will be blocked or eventually overturned by the Supreme Court) to restore the traditional definition of marriage.
So, that’s that solved.
Now we can all get back to voting for tax cuts, bombs or health care.