The co-functioning of institutions & their titles: "marriage" / "union" / ?

[Willis E. Elliott]

Fellow-Confessors

1

As I write, a family of purple finches in a hanging flower-basket on our porch is living  an order of creation / nature.  One parent is sitting the five eggs, & the other's role is family guard.

2

If you open the porch door & step inside, you will be in the presence of another family (I / Loree / Bill) of the same order of creation / nature biologically but sociologically of the father / mother / offspring institution whose legal & ceremonial construction is by marriage, the word serving also as the institution's name as human society's basic institution. 

3

Institutions, including marriage, are social constructs.  But biblically (let's say, from above), marriage is a "peculiar" (particular) divine construct-institution, in the sphere of the fact that humanity is a "peculiar" (particular) divine creation-institution.  (I've written & used a number of marriage service, none without the phrase "instituted by God").

4

Wrongly, pre-scientific literature (including the Bible, e.g. Ro.1) assumed that homosexuality is unnatural.  Since we know otherwise, fairness demands jurisprudence legalizing same-sex committed relationships with rights / responsibilities equitably parallel to those of marriage.

5

Wrongly, some are proposing that the meaning of "marriage" be expanded to include this new social construct-institution, the same-sex union.  This change would...

(1) deprive English of its word designating society's basic institution.

(2) increase linguistic confusion (whereas the fundamental reason for linguistic changes is to increase linguistic clarity).

(3) decrease, by dilution, the psycho-social status of society's basic institution, as the status of "God" (the biblical deity of American history) has been decreased by multiculturalism, the awareness of other cultures / religions - gods.  /  In a medical-ethics meeting in Cape Cod Hospital, a philosopher (Dan McCullough) on the panel asked me "What god are you referring to?"  (I: "The one first mentioned under the word in our dictionaries."  It was true at that time.)

6

"Marriage" in its traditional denotation / connotations is doomed by (1) Americans' inadequate linguistic-societal understanding, (2) the swamping of equity by ideological "equality" (which mis-shaped our most recent feminist movement), & (3) the current popular feeling that we individual Americans are victims of our institutions, including marriage - a feeling depressing the quality of our institutions.

7

We must learn to use the Bible in ways appropriate to the present American condition.

 

Grace and peace--

Willis