Why Definitions Are Important
The way I see the gay marriage debate is this. Pretty much everyone agrees that if two people love each other, that's a good thing. I agree with that sentiment as well. The problem is about what marriage is. Most people would probably say that marriage is what you get when two people love each other. It is a public commitment, an outward sign of the love they share with the rest of their community. Does that sound about right? Wrong! That's not what marriage is. The support and status that marriage entails is not a societal bonus for falling in love and agreeing to make a relationship lasting. That is not, of course, to say that love and romance are not an important part of marriage. But they are not the reason it has special status. If romance were the reason for supporting marriage, there would be no grounds for differentiating which relationships should be included and which should not. But that is not and never has been the nature of marriage. Marriage is vi...